by Scott Jäeger
“Captain,” Erik added on Trout’s behalf, with a swat to the back of his head.
“What business could a cat have anyway, Captain?”
“Keep pestering me with questions and I’ll make Jome your master.”
That was a threat to turn any man pale, and he said no more on the subject.
* * *
Late that evening, returning from more fruitless scouring of grog shops for information and rumour, Erik and I stumbled upon two men in the midst of a huddled transaction. I was surprised to see that Orvuhlt was one of them. The sailor typically spent his nights ashore neck deep in a barrel of ale. His opposite was selling cubical paper packets from a tray.
“What’s this,” I interrupted, “some special sort of tea?” I picked up and sniffed at one of them. My inclination had been friendly, but a smell like burnt cinnamon made my stomach clench. I dropped the one I held and knocked the other from Orvuhlt’s hand.
“This is poison,” I said. “I won’t have it on the ship.”
He bent to retrieve his purchase and secreted it one of his many pockets.
“You are new to this job if you think to tell me my business when I’m in port.” He paused meaningfully. “Captain.”
Orvuhlt strode off and the merchant made haste to do the same, leaving me to glare at my second in command.
“I hope you don’t expect me to take your side of this,” Erik said.
“Do you know what he was buying?”
“No.”
“I’ve smelled that same foul thing before, and when I did nothing good came of it. It could even be wilt for all we know.”
“Orvuhlt isn’t our best man, but he’s in the right. In port, every man is his own master.” Erik was already heading again for the Peregrine. “And gods help us if any of them don’t turn up tomorrow.”
* * *
Dusk was falling on the day we arrived at Haroun’s unnamed harbour. Two hours later, Ajer and Jome returned with heavy purses and eight men in a hurry to collect their purchase.
The dates were as valuable as the merchant described, Ajer said.
“Good news, I suppose,” Erik replied, “but there will be little enough to spend it on if we continue heading south.”
“Our most recent information gives them two day’s lead,” I said. “We’ll push on tomorrow.”
In such a small port there would be little in the way of entertainment, except for the trouble sailors make themselves, and I reminded the crew that any man not on board come first light would be left behind. Jome, Orvuhlt and a few others took a drink at the one inn but were put out shortly thereafter and returned to the ship.
The next day, Ajer roused the men before sunrise, walking the length of the crew’s quarters clapping his hands. After this, any who didn’t step up smartly were tipped out of their hammocks. Erik started his day by counting heads.
“Remember the tower we saw on the headland on the way in?” he said when he had finished.
“The old lighthouse,” I replied.
“Yes. I too assumed it was a lighthouse, though no lamp was lit to guide us in. Someone was up there in the dead of night, signaling.
“Are you sure it was a signal?” I asked apprehensively. “Was there an answer?”
“The pattern was repeated three times. I saw no answer.”
“I don’t know whether to be glad you spotted it or not,” I grunted, “since there’s nothing we can do about it. If you’ve finished the count let’s make way.”
“I was about to tell you there’s one missing, Trout.”
Jome was calling the few men stretching their legs on the pier to board when our wayward swab came into view, sprinting for the gangplank. We were already taking in our lines, so it couldn’t have been a much closer thing.
“Pity he came back,” Erik said. “I had hoped we’d be shed of him before he ate up Haroun’s advance.”
“Permission to come aboard, Captain,” Trout said when he reached the ramp. He was obviously distressed, but I was glad to see he wasn’t cringing. A coward wouldn’t last long aboard ship.
“You’re late,” I said, waving him onto the deck. “Where did you spend the night?”
“With a girl, Captain.”
“You found a girl?” Jome exclaimed. “Tell me, was it quite dark where you met this girl, and was a farmer involved in the transaction?”
Ajer grabbed Trout by the chin and turned his head to one side. Livid bite marks scored the boy’s neck from ear to shoulder, prompting uproarious laughter from everyone present, except the quartermaster. I was already thinking on the next leg of our voyage when I dismissed Trout. If discipline was required, Ajer Akiti was more than up to the task.
* * *
I knew little of Jundara, the farthest port south of Zij, and what I learned would bring me no joy. The low terrain meant our approach was easily observable an hour or more out, and by the time the Peregrine was tied off men lined the landings on either side. The welcoming party was armed and all of them to some degree showed the effects of wilt. The wharves behind them were thick with black galleys.
I ordered the gangplank lowered, and a small party boarded without invitation. The first, a lean fellow with a clumsily wrapped turban and yellow eyes, was obviously the leader. Another of his kind followed, as well as two henchmen, scarred fighters wound tight by their drug, naked swords on their hips.
“Captain Sloan, we will inspect your stores,” the first one hissed. “I do not expect you will interfere.”
“You’re not in charge here,” I said. “Where’s the harbourmaster?”
“The harbourmaster is ill,” he replied with a soft smile. “There is some question whether he will recover. A pity, he is a good man.”
I did not know what law, if any, prevailed in Jundara, but we could never defend the Peregrine against so many. I allowed them to search the hold. The inspection was quick at least, and they could hardly have stolen anything under Ajer’s watchful eye.
“Everything to your satisfaction?” I asked as they swaggered past.
“Yes, Captain Sloan. We investigate merely as a matter of protocol. The record will state that you carry no contraband, and I congratulate you on keeping such a fit ship.”
They disturbed nothing, Ajer said.
"It was for the crew," Erik said under his breath, "to hurt morale."
When the crowd of thugs had cleared the dock I allowed our people to go ashore, hoping it would lighten the disagreeable mood hanging over us. As a precaution Ajer had several others accompany him to Jundara’s trade quarter, while Erik and I made a survey of the black galleys.
“Do your teeth ache with their noise too?” Erik asked as we studied their ships one by one. The yellow-eyed merchants were more numerous than I had ever seen, and the sibilant buzz that accompanied them was intensified beyond tolerance.
“Do not think on it and do not speak of it,” I replied. “Just keep looking.”
The painful vibration subsided as we retreated from the wharf a half-hour later. Our quarry was not among the currently docked vessels.
“We’ll catch them up yet,” Erik said. “I don’t know what their game is, but they’ve about run out of places to go.”
“What if she has been moved to another ship?” I said, unable to hide my discouragement.
“We’ll find the ship we’re after, and if Isobel isn’t on board we’ll burn it to the water. There’s nothing else for it.”
I put a finger to my lips as we neared the Peregrine. Trout was headed towards us, half-dragging some wastrel along with him. He wore clothes in need of mending and a sour expression.
“Captain,” Trout said, “I spoke with a man I know here in Jundara, my cousin’s business partner, Mazin.”
I made a noncommittal sound.
“No, not this one,” Trout said with a laugh. “This isn’t Mazin, but a contact of his. He wants to help. Tell them,” he said to his companion, who stared at us like a startled bird but did not
immediately reply.
“I don’t like his look,” Erik said.
“Where did you get him?” I asked. Trout still clutched the man’s skinny wrist, as if fearing he would flee.
“He used to be an oarsman on the galley you’re looking for, says he knows where it’s headed.”
It was on my lips to ask how Trout could identify the ship, but I had carved its name into a panel on the Peregrine’s afterdeck in case any man wished to learn it. It was a slim hope.
“That is interesting,” Erik said to Trout’s new friend. “Not many men leave the galleys' employ. Or did they dismiss you?”
“I wasn’t dismissed,” he said, looking at the ground. “Couldn’t stand the smell is all.”
“If you don’t like stink,” Jome said as he and Ajer walked up, “then galleys isn’t for you.”
“Get the map case,” I said to Trout. “He can show us what he knows. And fetch Huspeth as well.”
When Erik had sorted out the correct chart, the raggedy fellow hesitantly placed a finger on the bottom of the diagram, the extreme south.
“That’s what you have to tell me?” I said. Just as in Solomon’s atlas, that area was blank.
“This place cannot be charted,” he whined.
“He is regrettably correct,” the soothsayer said as she joined us. “South of Jundara, your instincts must guide you.
“How is that useful to me?” I asked her.
“If there is something you are meant to find,” she said, “trust you will find it.”
“I cannot navigate on trust,” Erik said pointedly.
Ajer gestured that we had nothing else to go on. Jome, for once, said nothing.
I paid the informant slightly more than what I believed his information to be worth, and when both he and Trout were gone, said, “Our target has followed the coast south thus far. We’ll continue on that heading. Let's finish our business and put this place behind us.”
To see Jundara receding in the distance was like an anvil sliding from my shoulders. We had found no profit in trading, and on the point of sailing Ajer had discovered our grain to be full of weevils. We were delayed several hours replenishing our stores, and paid a steep price to do so.
That night, I listened below decks awhile to the men excitedly discussing the publication of a new codex of laws out of Ooth-Nargai. It was comforting to know the world would continue to turn, whether or not my own small problems were resolved.
Afterwards, I decided on a whim to spell the lookout at the top of the mainmast, where I surveyed a southern horizon made blank by overcast. In the middle of my shift, in a flicker of lightning so distant it came without thunder, I caught a glimpse of a long, narrow-beamed galley.
A Strange Coast
Jundara was the last settlement of civilized men, or had been, before the arrival of the merchants from Dylath-Leen, and the coast was wilderness thereafter, unbroken by house or light.
Five days from Jundara, Huspeth, Ajer, and I watched from the Peregrine as she passed the site of a ruined city.
“Doomed Sarnath,” Huspeth said ominously.
The ruins of Sarnath marked both the border of the ancient kingdom of Mnar and the edge of the map on the southern side. The city’s curse was known throughout the Dreamlands, and those sailors who could not be spared to go below deck averted their eyes while it lay in sight. Only the three of us would look on the broken teeth of her silhouette.
The soothsayer continued in a soft voice.
“Wise men who know how to read the old calendar hold that on a certain day of the year, at twilight, one may enter Sarnath of old and see for oneself the heights of her glory. They do not promise as straightforward an exit.”
Past that forbidding landmark we sailed into the uncharted southern area called the Fantastic Realms. The topography of that zone was weird and changeable. One might be passing a stretch of dense jungle and, after looking briefly away, see it replaced by lofty cedars, or red hills, or desert, a circumstance that left everyone jumpy and irritable. My sighting of the galley outside Jundara had been the last, and I wondered how far we should chase an unseen ship, but Huspeth assured me they were equally bound to the coast, since it was the sole reliable reference. The sea and wind, thankfully, were unchanged.
Ten days past Sarnath, Erik and I were discussing the difficulties of the voyage on the foredeck. He closed the lid of the sextant's case with an air of finality.
“This is useless,” he said. “Even the stars are confused here. If you know what brings our enemies down this coast, you must tell me. It won’t go any farther, I promise.”
“I cannot tell you for I do not know.” I studied the land as it unfurled before us, hoping to glean sense from madness.
“Our fresh water is running low, Captain. I don’t like it any more than you, but we have to put ashore soon.”
We had not dared land since passing the doomed city, and our mission was fast coming to resemble a forced march. The close geography of the Southern Sea never demanded extended tours aboard ship, nor did the scenery give one nightmares.
“Huspeth advises against it,” I said, “except in extreme necessity.”
“You stake much on the word of that witch-woman,” he grumbled, “and it’s hurting morale. Giving her the captain’s cabin diminished your standing with the men, and bunking with them yourself deprives them of the chance to complain about it.”
I could not argue against him, but neither could I offer any solution.
* * *
Two more days uneventfully passed. On the third, the sun burned bloodily on the horizon as it set, trailing clouds like strips of dirty gauze. The sun, at least, never varied in its path. Not yet.
Our watch called out that a bright light was visible ahead, among the rocks. We had seen lights before. Some were strangely coloured, some moved of their own accord, and none were inviting. This one shone yellow and steady and was framed by a natural stone arch, giving the impression of a distant lantern.
“Put us ashore, Erik,” I said, resignedly. As he had said, there was no question we must stop. I went below to speak to Huspeth.
“We spotted a light and we’re going to land,” I said. “Will you come?”
She shook her head no.
“Are you so sick you won’t stretch your legs?”
She replied severely, “I am not sick,” and after a moment pronounced, “Forage if you will, but take neither food or drink from the hand of anyone you meet on these shores."
With the ship sheltered in a natural cove, I accompanied the first boat over, carrying eight men and minimal gear. The oarsmen worked reluctantly, as if hoping the outgoing tide might reverse our course. The tense quiet was broken, on this occasion gladly, by Jome, who made a hobby of haranguing tow-headed Marthin.
“Must you bring that bloody apparatus with you every time we make shore?” Jome was saying.
Marthin had bartered for a windlass crossbow in Nagoordi and toted it around with him everywhere. It was a cumbrous, crank-driven model, and not in particularly good condition. If there was a less practical weapon for a sailor, it did not come to mind.
“You know you can’t keep it cocked all day,” Jome continued, when his first sally went unanswered, “ruins the string.”
“If I don’t keep it cocked, how am I going to shoot when I need to?”
“Might make a better club,” Jome said, making as if to wrestle it from Marthin’s grasp. “You can break off the bow just here.”
And so on.
The low hills were bare and uninviting, with little in the way of mature trees, or even scrub. There was, however, an abundance of asphodel. I decided to take the presence of this flower as a good omen, since there was no other to hand. After we beached our boat, I instructed the men to eat nothing they found while ashore. The landscape promised little in any case.
“I reckon the light was up there a ways, Captain,” Marthin said, pointing at a gap in the hills, “not far.”
We followed the scattered pieces of a derelict road to a compound of stone buildings. Some were no more than walls, a few others mostly intact. The scene was lit by a handful of rush lights.
“The beacon is gone now,” Orvuhlt said, stopping at the edge of the path like a dog at the end of its rope. “It must have been a lure, placed there by the ghosts that haunt these shores.”
“Someone gathered these rushes, and lit them,” Erik said, “and cleared the plaza of weeds and deadfall.”
This observation was answered by an ominous grating noise from a squat, windowless building still decorated with two tattered banners which the elements had bleached of their arms. Before we could do more than startle and clutch the grips of our swords, the double doors of the entrance slid smoothly open and a line of young women emerged and walked across the square to where we waited, perplexed. They were wan and hungry looking, ranging in age from perhaps nine to eighteen, and their simple clothes had been many times mended. The tallest girl addressed me in a clear voice that suggested elocution lessons.
"Have you come for the feast?" she asked.
Rather than engage in her riddle, I replied as if she had not spoken.
"I am captain of the sailing ship Peregrine, out of Zij. Our fresh water has run dry and we’ve been forced to land for more. Go fetch your master or governess."
"I am the eldest, sir. My name is Lyss. My sisters and I are quite alone." Seeing I was incredulous, she added, "Our families have boarded us here for the benefit of the sea air, and the tranquility that aids perfect meditation."
"Yes, of course," I replied, as if it were perfectly natural to seclude a group of girls on a barren coastline, in the wreckage of an ancient fort.
“Captain, pardon me,” Orvuhlt said, pulling me away from Lyss as if I were dangerously exposed, “but you mustn’t truck with these apparitions. They hide some danger, I am sure of it.”
“They are young girls,” I said. When our rum had run dry on the Peregrine, Orvuhlt had been down with the shakes for two days. His head, apparently, still wasn’t clear.
“Are they that,” he said earnestly, “or are they phantoms?”