by Samit Basu
‘Rukmini?’ he asked, confused.
‘I was never Rukmini,’ she said.
‘I do not understand,’ he said. ‘But there is much I do not understand. Yours is not the first face that has drifted out of my memories into my sight. While I rode out on errands of my own, this world lost many of its finest; many have journeyed to the Great Pyramid before their time. I have been reunited with many I once knew. There are faces I have loved, faces I have fought; my oldest friends who betrayed me, rakshases who befriended me. Some come to me as bodies newly undead, drawn from the fields where they fell by my lych-lords. Others had their bodies taken away from them by the storms of war and come to me as restless spirits. Generals and kings, heroes and rogues. What are you, maiden? Are you undead, or rakshas?’
‘Rakshas,’ said Red. ‘And the face I showed you is not mine, and belongs to someone who is alive, as far as I know. But it was the face I wore when we knew each other.’
‘It does not matter any more,’ he said sadly, looking away. ‘You are alive, and that is good. I wish you long life, and every happiness.’
On a sudden whim, Red moved close to him, held his face in her hands and kissed him. His lips were cold and lifeless, and he stepped away after a while. Behind Red, Aciram’s eyes glowed red, and his skin bulged. But Aciram did not even exist as far as Red was concerned; she was staring at the Cold Prince with a wonderstruck expression, and fat tears were rolling down her cheeks.
‘I can feel again,’ she said quietly.
Pralay laughed unpleasantly.
‘Congratulations must be in order,’ he said. ‘I will take your leave now.’
‘Take me with you,’ she said.
‘That is impossible.’
‘We will meet again,’ said Red. ‘We have a world to rule, and many more wars to win.’
The Cold Prince mounted his horse and stared at her expressionlessly.
‘If you look around you,’ he said, ‘you will see what happens when you try to rule the world. As for winning wars…if you have not yet learned that no one wins wars, you probably never will.’
He galloped off dramatically, a handsome, gallant and only slightly decomposed example of all that was good and pure in the world.
‘Bloody hero,’ said Aciram. ‘Not win wars, forsooth. We’re still standing, aren’t we? And do you see any ravians anywhere?’
‘He was right,’ said Red. ‘The world doesn’t need to be ruled. It needs to be healed. It needs to be set right.’
‘Be that as it may,’ said Aciram, ‘if you ever kiss anyone but me again, I will kill you.’
Red showed no sign of having heard him. She smiled to herself as she watched the Cold Prince race away. ‘Of course, in order to set the world right, I will have to control it,’ she said.
‘And control it you shall,’ said Aciram, putting an arm around her. ‘Just give me and the lads a few days to get everything up and running.’
‘Thank you for everything, Aciram,’ she said, touching his cheek.
He guffawed loudly and pulled her to him. ‘You want to thank me? You said you could feel again, didn’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know what I want now.’
‘That’s the best bit of news I’ve heard in a while. That will come in very handy when we celebrate our victory. And look, we are alone!’
Red disappeared.
Chapter Eight
The howling storm that had raged around the Duck of Destiny for four hours, threatening to engulf it with monstrous waves in various threatening shapes and sizes, disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. The ocean’s surface now resembled that of a table, and a few porpoises gambolled happily in the distance, adding insult to injury; puffy white clouds in the sky floated around sheepishly, pretending they had not been hurling lightning-bolts enthusiastically ship-wards a few seconds ago. The sun appeared, beaming guilelessly and cheerfully down at the drenched upper deck of the elegant carrack, and the Silver Dagger, drenched from head to toe, removed a small jellyfish from his left ear, threw it on the deck, stamped on it, and spoke for all the crew and passengers when he said, ‘This is completely ridiculous.’
It wasn’t so much the gales and towering waves that the Dagger was irritated by. Even the whirlpools and completely unnecessary clashing rocks he could have tolerated with a little effort. What got under his skin was the easy insouciance with which the gods threw obstacle after obstacle in the path of the Duck, and then restored things to normal moments after and pretended nothing of any consequence had happened. The Dagger wasn’t asking for an easy voyage. All he was looking for was a little appreciation from time to time.
And then there were the signs and portents. Yes, the world was ending, but that had been established for a while, thought the Dagger. There was really no need to rub it in. There was a lack of finesse, of etiquette, there that upset the Dagger’s refined sensibilities. A few signs of doom once every few days would have been quite enough. But the Duck of Destiny could not sail for even an hour without being accosted by some reminder of the onrushing all-consuming calamity. Pillars of fire in the distance, crew members succumbing to babbling fits, burning bushes that sizzled and hissed as they succumbed to nature’s laws and sank under the waves, rains of fish and, unfathomably, gherkins, and that was not even counting the thunderous voices in the sky, the singing two-headed sea-cows, the illogical swarms of insects, the rude cloud formations…really, enough was enough. When he met the gods, thought the Dagger, he would give them a lesson or two in the art of subtlety.
Fujen, on the other hand, expressed no dissatisfaction over the bizarre and wondrous visions that manifested themselves regularly around the ship; if anything, they impressed and entertained her, and filled her with a sense of occasion and purpose. It was, after all, an honour to be singled out thus by the gods, though it was still difficult for her to believe that any of this was actually taking place, that she was really sailing to save the world. Her pirates were supremely thrilled as well, down to the last woman. They had spent most of their buccaneering careers deliberately avoiding the childish superstitions that made their male counterparts so susceptible to deception by anyone possessing an old bedsheet and an imagination, and saw the real wonders that now surrendered them as a reward for all those years of skepticism.
Even when ghostly apparitions began to appear on the ship, proclaiming the doom of man in sepulchral voices, the pirates were amused rather than scared; they gave their visitors from the spirit realm nicknames and made up ribald jokes about them. What did worry Fujen and her crew, though, was that all their navigational instruments had gone berserk, and so had every means of telling the time. The sun and moon either hung in the sky far longer than they were supposed to or dipped and rose with manic speed; the stars were all out of place, and the wind changed direction every other minute. The Duck of Destiny sailed on in an ocean without time or location; many of the crew were not sure whether they were awake or dreaming, as days and nights froze or melted, and the sky and sea changed colour and form at will. Mantric had told Fujen this might happen, that the gods might toy with the ship, try to confuse them and awe them with pranks and spells. They were, after all, trying to affect the will of the gods; many would see this as hubris. These tests of will were, said Mantric, a good sign; they meant that the Duck of Destiny had the gods’ attention. Besides, would it not be insulting to the gods if an audience with them were easily achieved? And why should the gods want to spend their infinitely precious time watching them sail through calm seas?
This also meant, of course, that every little thing the crew did incurred the risk of angering some god or the other, and that the gods themselves were vying for the crew’s attention, in order to find more prominence in their story. It was vitally important, therefore, said Mantric, that all the gods be ignored equally, and in such a manner as not to annoy them. And so Fujen’s pirates pretended not to understand when their shipmates spoke in strange voices, issuing divine comman
ds; they pretended not to notice when clouds spelled out messages in the sky, or when attractive and attention-demanding naked nymphs emerged from the depths, telling their tales of woe, trying to divert the ship towards one quest or another. Sometimes, when the signs, portents or messengers in question were too loud or large to be ignored, Fujen and Orpi stood before them, observing them dispassionately, taking notes, conducting erudite discussions about the perfectly natural diversity in mid-ocean flora and fauna, taking care to mention how all of this was clearly of earthly origin and had nothing to do with any gods, and occasionally waving back politely at the sea-creatures that danced and leaped around the ship, until the gods gave up and tried something else.
When drama failed, the gods tried romance; amorous swans and clouds swooped down on the ship, hoping to start legendary god-child sagas. They met Stivin Seagull instead, and retired hurt.
Mantric very rarely played a part in Fujen’s pirates’ adventures with the gods and their creatures; this was because he spent most of his time below decks being mysterious. Three cabins on the lower hold had been sealed off and were for his use alone, and he spent his days in these rooms, working away on whatever present he intended to give the gods. No one else on the ship, not even Amloki, knew what was in those rooms. Mantric had refused to tell the Dagger what he had brought in those massive trunks from Bolvudis and Kol, because, he said, it was imperative that the gift be kept a secret from the gods until the opportune moment, and it was quite possible that the gods were looking through his eyes. Amloki’s curiosity was threatening to overwhelm him, especially because the largest of Mantric’s cabins clearly contained a living creature, something very fierce; it thumped and rattled chains and gnawed on wood ceaselessly and Mantric always had four or five pirates guard the entrance to his corridor whenever he went to feed it. Bertholamu the Berth Beast, as Fujen had affectionately named Mantric’s hidden monster, spent its days pounding away at the walls and doors that kept the ship safe from it, and making spine-chilling quiet, wet sounds that made everyone that heard them think of ripped stomachs and exposed innards. The Dagger had tried once, out of general principles, to sneak into the room and see the monster for himself. To no avail; Mantric had placed strong magical wards on Bertholamu’s door, and the Dagger had admitted later to himself that this had been a good idea; the Berth Beast, sensing company, had been completely quiet while the Dagger had tried to pick its lock, and this silence had been so intense and menacing that even Amloki’s dauntless heart had trembled. What wild magical animal had Mantric brought for the gods? The Dagger thought of the chimaera in Bolvudis, the nundu that had almost killed them all in the Bleakwood, and hoped desperately that Mantric had any idea what he was doing.
* * *
‘What are you doing, Mantric?’ called the Dagger, pounding on Mantric’s door.
‘You can’t come in,’ yelled Mantric. ‘I’m working. I must not be disturbed.’
‘You need to come out for a bit,’ said the Dagger. ‘We need your help.’
‘Can’t it wait? I’m on the verge of an earth-moving discovery.’
‘It probably can wait,’ said the Dagger. ‘That’s the problem. You might notice that we have stopped moving.’
‘Why?’
‘Come and see.’
It was a whale. A huge, white, deeply unattractive whale, and it was lurking in front of the Duck of Destiny, moaning gently and bumping into the hull, causing the ship to shudder and lurch. The whale’s back was covered with scars and deep gashes, and studded with harpoons joined to one another by a tangle of ropes, on which hung an interesting variety of dead human and plant life. Orpi and Jen stood on deck, watching it with interest, as Mantric and Amloki came running out, adjusting their wigs.
‘What is that?’ asked Mantric.
‘It’s a whale,’ said Orpi helpfully.
‘I can see it’s a whale. What is it doing here? No, don’t tell me. What do you want me to do?’
‘Move it.’
Mantric glowered. He sent an angry blue fireball sputtering into the whale’s hump, and it groaned and opened its mouth, displaying rows of rock-like teeth.
‘Look at those corpses. This is no ordinary whale,’ said Orpi. ‘I think it’s Hattima.’
‘Don’t be silly, Baby-Duck,’ said Jen. ‘Hattima’s just a legend. Besides, if it were Hattima, the Nurmi and Captain Aguleb would be here, and there would be all sorts of trouble.’
‘Ship ahoy!’ yelled Irik Seagull from the crow’s nest. ‘Large trireme, heading straight at us!’
Jen blanched. ‘It can’t be,’ she said. ‘Not the Nurmi. It doesn’t exist.’
In the distance, they could see the trireme, a black speck growing larger at an alarming rate.
‘You tell them they don’t exist, Jen,’ said the Dagger. ‘That should buy us some time.’
‘We’re in all sorts of trouble,’ said Orpi. ‘Man the onagers!’ she called, and the decks were suddenly full of scurrying pirates.
‘Perhaps someone could tell me what the hells you are talking about,’ said Mantric as they raced across the Duck of Destiny towards the approaching trireme.
‘The Nurmi,’ said Orpi breathlessly. ‘A great war-ship of the past, doomed to wander the seas for all time, bringing death and destruction with it.’
‘Charming. Why?’
‘Aguleb, a great pirate captain of a previous Age, swore that he would not rest in life or death until he had killed Hattima Timi the great whale, who had eaten his heart. But Hattima was cunning beyond all measure, and could not be caught. Aguleb hunts him still, searching the great seas around the world in the Nurmi, destroying anything that stands in his way. The great whale cannot be killed until Aguleb’s heart is removed from its stomach. Unfortunately, any attempts on the part of adventurers to enter the whale’s stomach and retrieve the heart have resulted in digestion.’
Mantric responded to this by collapsing spectacularly.
‘I know it’s not a nice story,’ said Orpi reprovingly, ‘but there’s no need to faint.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the Dagger. ‘He’s sent the seagulls to spy on the ship. He’s seeing through their eyes.’
Mantric began to stir and mumble.
‘Even if it is this Captain Aguleb and that whale is the one he’s hunting,’ said the Dagger, ‘I don’t see what it has to do with us.’
‘As long as we’re between the whale and the Nurmi,’ said Jen, ‘it has plenty to do with us.’
Mantric sat bolt upright and his eyes opened wide.
‘A black ship, hundreds of oars in three levels,’ he said, wincing and rubbing his head. ‘It moves fast, much faster than us. The undead walk its decks. Their flag is white on black; a horned skeleton driving a spear into a bleeding heart. Their captain has a skull for a head and a wooden leg. He’s wearing an eyepatch, which doesn’t make much sense.’
‘It’s Aguleb,’ said Orpi. ‘We’re doomed, Baby-Duck!’
‘We have the best ship in the world,’ said Jen. ‘And the best captain, though I say so myself. Now stand aside, ladies, and let me steer. We get out of the Nurmi’s way, and all’s well.’
Jen took command of the wheel, barking out commands. Sails were raised and lowered, oars pushed and pulled. The Duck of Destiny twisted and turned in the ocean, but Hattima Timi the whale was wily and fast, and swam effortlessly alongside, always keeping the Duck between himself and the approaching trireme. They could see Aguleb’s ship clearly now, a long, black knife cutting through the ocean, bare black masts looming like ribs over its undead decks. Skeletal undead pirates, dressed in rags, brandished rusty cutlasses and screamed wordlessly; jakyinis with seaweed dreadlocks swaggered about, cruel curved hooks in place of their hands glittering in the sun. Rotting sea-ghouls lurched in unison, raising a large catapult on the Nurmi’s foredeck. Each one of Jen’s manouevres was matched easily by Aguleb’s tiller-zombies; whale and carrack and trireme danced a fast-paced waltz in the ocean, their paths swerving and co
verging.
‘This is impossible,’ said Jen, ‘that ancient trireme can’t possibly steer well enough to keep pace with our ship.’
‘They don’t know that,’ said the Dagger. ‘Onagers, Orpi!’
Orpi yelled out and five bolts of Psomedean fire arced towards the Nurmi. They all found their target, and Fujen’s pirates cheered, but their yells of jubilation died a moment later. The Nurmi was burning but undeterred, and its crew did not seem in the least bit discouraged or damaged. If anything, they looked even more fearsome. The undead ship sped on towards the Duck, trailing fire like a comet. The battering ram on its prow was shaped like a dragon’s skull, and an unearthly fire burned in its eyes.
Jen sent the wheel spinning, and the Duck of Destiny banked sharply to starboard. In desperation, Telu-Yeti sent four large harpoons shuddering into Hattima’s side, but the whale had taken centuries of harpoons and survived; he swerved with the ship, watching it with a cunning eye. The Dagger stared at the crafty old whale in admiration, and could have sworn that he winked.
‘A plan, if you please, Mantric,’ called Jen. ‘If they ram us, we’re done.’
‘I should have learned to swim,’ said Mantric, shaking his head sadly. He knelt on the deck and raised his arms in the air. A blue light began to spread from his hands.
Captain Aguleb stepped forward and stood behind the Nurmi’s battering ram, his skull blazing, his cutlass high in the air. He spoke in a great voice that echoed across the sea.
‘Know ye not the price, ye scurvy sunk-ship mice, of standing ‘twixt Aguleb and his prey?’ he roared. ‘Fire shall not burn me, blade shall not turn me, think ye can spurn me today?’
‘That’s awful,’ said the Dagger, looking at Jen, who shrugged, embarrassed.
‘Traditional pirate,’ she said. ‘He’s spent years rehearsing that, Amloki. Don’t sneer.’
The dragon-skull battering ram streaked on towards the Duck of Destiny. On the Nurmi’s foredeck, the giant catapult creaked and snapped, sending its missiles flying towards the Duck. The missiles in question were jakyinis; several fell flailing in the ocean, but others flew into the carrack’s sails, and slid downwards, ripping up the sails with their hook-hands. Fujen’s pirates drew their cutlasses and charged, screaming challenges.