Dreamlands

by Scott Jäeger

  “Phantoms or no, we’ll take water where we can find it,” Erik interjected, forcibly separating the seaman from my arm.

  "You don’t object to us drawing from your well, miss?" I asked.

  “Of course not, Captain. Come with me.” She walked us the short distance to their well. “Please make use of whatever we can provide.”

  A ring of stones marked the location. The frame had rotted away to two smooth stumps, but the rusty chain and bucket would serve our needs.

  “Do you wish to ask if their well is haunted?” Erik said. Orvuhlt gave him a sour look.

  "It's good, Captain,” Marthin pronounced a minute later, “good and sweet."

  “Ajer, take Marthin back with the boat to fetch our tuns, and more men. Replenish our water as swiftly as possible. And give them the same warning about the food. Erik, get the others something to do.”

  Ajer and Erik left to their tasks.

  “Captain,” Lyss said with a dreamy smile, as if I was a child she was indulging, “your men will want to rest when they are finished. Come."

  Lyss led me into one of the smaller houses. Through the partly collapsed floor, a flight of stairs descended into a dark, debris cluttered room. I shook my head slightly, wondering did she see something else entirely, or was she merely mad.

  "We prefer to make our beds beneath the stars, miss.”

  “Then come see the hall where we will have our celebration,” she said, leading me outside and to another place. “We are quite proud of it.”

  Though it lacked a roof, the building in question was in fact a long, narrow dining hall, with for table and benches three prodigious oblongs of stone. I doubt ten men together could have shifted one of them. A series of statues stood in alcoves along the left and right walls, positioned so close to the benches there was barely enough room to sidle along behind them. The sculptures seemed to represent disproportionately tall men but, like everything else in the ancient hall, rain had worn them to soft shadows of their original forms. They were carved from a different stone than the furniture, porous and almost white, and seemed to be bending slightly at the waist, as if to directly observe the diners at their meals.

  Ignoring the girl’s prattle about tapestries and chandeliers, I headed back outside. Though I knew Ajer would finish with the water as fast as the job could be done, I went to the well, Lyss trailing behind.

  "What was this about a feast?" Trout asked, jogging up from the beach with Marthin, the two of them grinning like mischievous brothers. I shot them a look which I’m sure every commander keeps in his hip pocket.

  “Yes,” Lyss said, visibly brightening, “your arrival was well timed. There is to be a feast tomorrow and you are to be our guests.”

  "We have our own provisions," I said curtly. The crew's expressions said they remembered my warning about the food, but when two sallow girls appeared with sacks of root vegetables and hardtack like so many grey stones, their dirty looks faded to dispirited frowns.

  I alternated fretfully between supervising those working the well and the second crew Erik had set to falling and bucking up a tree. Sailors were unpredictable at the best of times, but frightened, bored and surrounded by young girls– Despite my worrying, all was quiet enough until Erik jogged over to speak to me.

  “Orvuhlt,” he said.

  Leaving him and Ajer to their duties, I found Orvuhlt speaking with Lyss in the entrance of the dining hall. She was about to hand him a wooden cup. I brushed roughly past him, knocking the cup to the cracked flags at our feet.

  "Sorry, my dear,” I said, as she bent to retrieve it from a puddle of red wine.

  “It’s no bother, Captain. They’re quite sturdy.”

  “Orvuhlt, you’re needed on the wood chopping detail.” Dragging his feet like a sulking child, the sailor left to join Erik.

  “Would you like wine, Captain?”

  “Perhaps at dinner tomorrow. There is much to do and the men are exhausted." We would be far away before their gathering, whatever they planned.

  I returned to the well to find Ajer, arms crossed, staring at our kegs as if they had personally failed him.

  “Not safe to shift these full tuns now,” Jome said. "Too dark."

  “What do you say?” I asked Ajer and Erik.

  May as well spend the night, Ajer signed.

  “Let the men sleep ashore,” Erik agreed. “The girls are mad, but they’re not any threat, and the land is refreshingly stable.”

  Once our tools were gathered and cleaned we made camp in the dusty grass. Our fire dispelled the dark, but not the apprehensive mood that had taken everyone, and speculation about the little colony went round and round.

  “I saw candles made of beeswax. Where are they from?”

  “The road beyond the fort is impassable, hasn’t been used in decades.”

  “From whence are they supplied, by sea?”

  “There is no jetty, but we beached all right.”

  “Phantoms,” Orvuhlt pronounced, gloomily meditating on the spilled wine.

  “Hush, man!” Erik said. “I’m in no mood for ghost stories tonight.”

  “Some luck,” Orvuhlt said. “First walk on land in weeks and we’re camping with haints. Probably all wake up with our throats slit. Me, I won’t sleep a minute.”

  “Then you won’t mind sitting first watch,” Erik suggested.

  “Might as well take mine too,” Jome chimed in, “if you’re not tired.”

  Marthin alone was silent, preferring to sit and hug his crossbow to him.

  Finally, Jome launched into a story about the sexual proclivities of tinkers, especially cautioning Marthin on their habits. In matters of depravity the man was a scholar. Even Orvuhlt stopped licking his lips for a time.

  Though a watch was kept through the night, we slept undisturbed.

  * * *

  When I rose the next morning, I found Erik already waiting on me.

  "Get our casks aboard and be smart about it,” I said with phony bluster. “Once the water’s up, we’ll be off."

  "I'm afraid not, Captain," he replied, pointing at a great, anvil-shaped cloud on the horizon. Such a formation always foretold a storm. "The hammer's about to strike."

  “We’ll ride it out shipboard,” I said. “See that every man’s skin is filled as tight as those tuns. Let’s get moving before the chop gets worse.”

  We all worked with a will, trading off jobs as we ferried the water from shore to ship. Soon, with the boat stowed and everyone snug below decks, I was hopeful the girls in their crumbling village would be forgotten. The Peregrine rocked with the swells, but the cove would protect us from danger, and I allowed a dice game (for wooden chits, not money) to keep everyone occupied. With a bit of tarp rigged overhead to keep off the rain, Ajer Akiti and I sat on deck watching the storm. I was less than sanguine however. My father’s mantle clock was ticking in my head, and I felt as though I waited on a deadline without knowing its nature.

  “It’s Orvuhlt, sir,” Marthin cried, shocking me from distant memories as he climbed up from the hold.

  “They’re not fighting over dice already,” I declared.

  Erik appeared close on his heels. “It’s not that,” he said. “Orvuhlt’s not aboard. He must’ve stayed ashore.”

  As quickly as we could the four of us untied the boat and wrestled it back into the water, and after ten minutes fighting the waves we were back on the beach. Leaving Marthin to guard the craft against misfortune, Ajer, Erik and I ran towards the village, above which a brilliant light shone.

  The beacon which had first drawn us to that fateful shore burned again over the great hall, atop a spire and roof which earlier that day had not existed. Windows of stained glass had replaced empty rectangles, and where yesterday had been a gap in a ruined wall, a sturdy oak door stood open. What we saw on its threshold brought our headlong rush to a staggering halt.

  Beneath an elaborate chandelier a polished stone table was piled with delicacies: venison, beef an
d pork, duck, partridge and smaller fowls I could not identify. Every dish was meat, with no apple or cake or hunk of bread.

  The girls were all present, and transformed as well, from deprived and pale to blushing good health. They were clothed in silk, their glossy hair confined by braided cord or circlet. Though dressed like highborn ladies, they neglected the silver table settings, along with any pretense at etiquette, and were attacking the rich fare like starved prisoners. At the head of this gathering Orvuhlt sat like a lord, a goblet of wine at his lips and Lyss on his knee. She worked one hand between his legs, and with the other pushed a rib bone into her mouth. The final touch to this fantastic debauch was the sourceless whine of a high flute, accompanied by the sound of erratic drumbeats, deranged music that crawled on my skin like a living thing.

  Water puddled on the heavy carpet at our feet as we stood stupefied before this spectacle. My duty as captain insisted I get Orvuhlt away, but every instinct pushed me back from the incomprehensible scene. I had taken the first step towards the unreal banquet when a massive thunderclap shivered the hall. The beacon above us flickered like an electric light on a faulty circuit, and went black. Seconds later, it was replaced by the dim glow of a dozen storm lamps, their metal caps sizzling in the rain.

  The roof was open to the sky once more and the three of us were swaying in the midst of a gale. The drums had become the staccato crack of thunder and the droning flute a relentless wind in the chinks of ruined walls. When I mopped the pouring rain from my eyes, the enchanted finery which had filled the great hall was gone.

  The slab of table was covered in several grotesque humps, which I eventually discerned to be mounds of flesh. The first was an animal similar to a deer, but with back-curving horns. It was covered in a mat of flies, made restive by the pummeling rain but determined to continue their business. Further along were three human corpses. The first was recently dead. The second, beginning to bloat, was responsible for the horrid stench which had replaced the smell of roast meat, and the last was a desiccated husk long expired. The smallest girl was worrying the skin from its tibia.

  Orvuhlt's laughing face had turned grizzled and ashy. It and his seaman's tunic were washed in the red blood of the celebration.

  "You see," he cried with a sob verging on a terrific madness, "a feast, Captain, a feast!"

  The feral girls continued to grunt and tear at their foul repast, occasionally scuffling and scratching at each other, and paid Erik no heed as he gingerly made his way behind them towards Orvuhlt. Shoulder-to-shoulder with Ajer, I drew my sword, frantically seeking something to defend against. Of every thing in that cursed hall, the illusion had left one detail unchanged: the statues in the alcoves. I sensed then that their forms had not been worn by rains or time, but were just as they had always been. It seemed to me that they watched, and that the one behind the lord's seat watched most closely.

  I saw Erik stumble in the discarded bones and muck along the table, grabbing at one of the enigmatic figures to right himself.

  “Get out of there,” I called and he obeyed with haste, though if he had seen what I had he may have moved quicker yet. The things in the alcoves were leaning slowly forward.

  I sheathed my cutlass, and leapt up onto the table, scrambling over the piled corpses and offal. Squatting before Orvuhlt, I shoved the deranged Lyss aside and shouted at him. He tittered at me in reply, lifting a wine bottle to his lips. I knocked it from his hands and went to lift him bodily from his seat, but he was wet, and slippery with filth. I could find no purchase, and looking up I saw the faceless aspect of the tallest statue looking directly over his head. Gagging on the stink of rot, I tried to disengage, but Orvuhlt had latched on to my arm, trying to sink his teeth in me like an animal gone mad. Panic was stealing up my spine when Ajer planted his sandaled foot on Orvuhlt’s sternum and wrestled me free.

  Outside, my back to the cursed hall, I took gulping breaths as Ajer indicated the necessity of reaching the ship at once. She was the only shelter from the storm, other than the village.

  “It may be too late already,” Erik cried. Whatever else he said was drowned in the wind as we raced back to the boat.

  Marthin was waiting with two hands on the small craft’s prow, as if he feared it would blow away. He did not question us about Orvuhlt there on the beach, nor later once we had returned to the Peregrine. I imagine our faces said enough.

  At the Summit

  It was a blistering hot afternoon, made doubly disagreeable by the snow the day before, and the topside was all but deserted. We were making good time, the Peregrine friskily cresting the waves in a strong wind, but as always the question was to what end. I tried not to dwell on the possibility of Huspeth being wrong about our prey. If they had more reliable means of negotiating those haunted seas we would never find them.

  From the lightness of Erik’s step as he approached, I could guess what was to come.

  “The crew has been restless since Orvuhlt’s death.”

  “We don't know that he's dead,” I said. Which was worse still.

  “There’s talk of putting the witch-woman ashore,” he said. “I told them we do not know for sure the coast will lead us back, that without the old woman’s magic we might drift forever.”

  “She is blameless in this. If the Peregrine is cursed, it is my doing.”

  “Fitting words, since you’re their second choice. People fear what they don’t understand, and there’s plenty we don’t understand about this place. I heard Ajer talking about reduced rations. If we’re forced to that on top of everything else, the crew will turn on you.

  “Isaac,” he concluded after an uncomfortable pause, “we have provisions enough to make Jundara if we’re careful, if we turn back now.”

  “Tomorrow,” I sighed.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “If we don’t see some sign by tomorrow we’ll head back to Jundara. You’re right, there’s no other choice.” I should have been grief stricken, for to stop now would surely mean losing Isobel, but the thought of ending our quest filled me instead with numbness.

  Erik put a hand on my shoulder for a brief moment as the next crisis erupted. Ajer Akiti surged up from the main hatch, hauling Trout behind him like a puppy. Ajer set him on his feet and began to sign, but this time the exact meaning of his gesticulations escaped me.

  I supposed the boy had been caught shirking –Ajer was as silent on his feet as in his speech; a circling hawk made more noise– but at this point in our venture a lazy swab would be of small concern. If, on the other hand, his crime was filching from our stores, that would be a disaster. Theft was typically punished with marooning, which effectively meant death in one of its slowest and least merciful forms. Though perhaps in these parts it would not be as slow as all that.

  With his unfaltering instinct for seeking out strife, Jome appeared as I asked Ajer to start over. He ground his teeth and began the motions again. As far as I could understand, he had come upon Trout in the aft storage compartment, staring into a corner and talking, but there was no one else present.

  “You’re not making sense, Ajer.” Taxed with my own concerns, I could not see why Trout playing the halfwit should make him so upset.

  “Leave the boy alone, you towering menace,” Erik said, betraying his own frustration. “He works his shift like everyone else, but without complaint. I’d pay him double just for that.”

  “Double of nothing is still nothing,” Jome interjected.

  Ajer made one further sign, to point at his own two eyes, before vanishing below. Whatever had occurred, Trout would have little opportunity for mischief from now on.

  * * *

  “Heave to,” I called. The day had just dawned, in a pleasingly normal fashion, when I called for us to stop.

  Erik rushed to where I stood near the wheel. I had given few commands in recent days.

  “What do you see?” I asked him, unwilling to trust my own eyes.

  “A mountain, right on the coast, and its smaller b
rother peaking up behind it. Is there something special about them?”

  “And in the sky?”

  “If you think I’m in the mood for riddles–”

  “What do you see, damn you?” I dared not turn my head, fearing the scene would evaporate if I looked away.

  “The sky shows two stars directly above, the last two in sight. I imagine they will fade soon. So what?”

  “Put us ashore.”

  Before disembarking, I conferred with Huspeth in the captain’s cabin.

  “There is a sign along the shore, mountains and stars I saw first in the frontispiece of Solomon’s atlas, and later marked on the door of the man who gave me this.” I touched the embossed leather of my dagger’s sheath. “We’ve sighted no galley, but I believe this is a sign. What do you say?”

  She sighed.

  “In a land where the course of a river can change from one hour to the next, how can I advise you? In Zij I had thought myself full of wisdom and years, but in the Fantastic Realms there is only the weight of the latter.”

  I left without comment, thinking that for what little she offered I should have paid the blood debt for her apprentice back in Zij.

  We anchored the Peregrine in the lee of a rocky peninsula and landed in our longboat. I had never seen a group of men in such a muddle, delighted to once more have fresh water, firm land under foot, and what proved to be sweet fruit, yet apprehending that at any moment some miscreation would step out from the trees. Once a camp had been established and more men ferried ashore, I took a few minutes to study the lay of the land.

  What now? Ajer asked.

  “I am going to climb that higher peak,” I said. It looked to me less than a day’s hike. “If I find no answers our journey is over.

  “Hey, who goes there?” I said to him, shading my eyes. Far up the slope, a woman in peasant skirts negotiated a steep mountain meadow. Every so often she bent down as if to study the ground, looking for herbs I supposed. Though everyone in earshot looked where I pointed, no one answered.

  “There is a woman up there, you must see her.” There was a murmur of confusion, and a few made the sign against evil. “She looks to be a farmer or berry picker, out gathering fruit with a basket.”