The Dungeoneers: Blackfog Island

by Jeffery Russell

  “Blackfog!” the merman finally managed to say. “You’re losing the race on purpose, then?”

  “What do you know about Blackfog?”

  The merman was silent for a few seconds, staring out to sea. “We call it ‘The Ink’. That’s what it looks like in the water. It only comes in the dark or when the fog lays above. A wall of swirling ink from ceiling to bed, miles ‘round. We used to dare each other when we were merpoles. Flick your tail in and out. Swim through just the edge. But if you went too far in…” his voice trailed off. Thud suspected the merman was remembering a face from long ago.

  “Can you tell us how to get there?” Thud asked.

  “You don’t want to go there,” the mermaid cut in. “The sea is a lot bigger than the land. We have hundreds of kingdoms, vast empires, wars on a scale that you can’t imagine. But there are places in the sea that are their own. The Ink is one of those places. The ones that live there are abominations.”

  “You know what lives there?” Thud asked. “Anything you can tell us…”

  The merman spat and directed a glare at the mermaid. “We do not speak of the abominations, dwarf. But keep on into the Eye of the Islands. Two days toward the center then wait for when only the plum moon is on the waters. Search the darkness until you find the darkest place. That will be it.”

  The mermaid frowned at him then slipped silently back into the water.

  “Here be your rum.” Skulk dropped another bottle in the basket. His eyes flickered briefly toward where the mermaid had been but he didn’t bring it up.

  “Good pep talk,” Thud said to break the awkward silence. “And if there’s that many of ya I’m glad you lot never figured out how to grow legs.”

  “Likewise with you and fins,” the merman said. He tucked the rum bottles under one arm. “You sail to your doom,” he said. “But watch out for the Kraquid along the way.” He dropped back beneath the waves, twisting over. His silver tail broke the surface, gleaming in the sun then vanishing with a splash and a ripple.

  “So,” Thud said after a moment of memory searching. “What’s a Kraquid?”

  “Pretty much what it sounds like, I’m expecting,” Skulk said. “Not a thing I’ve heard of but they get some pretty sizeable beasts moving around the Cloud Sea from time to time.”

  “Is that what he called the Eye of the Islands?”

  Skulk nodded. “The mer have a different name for everything as they see it from a whole different angle than us.” He lifted the oars and began rowing back toward the boat. “But now we at least have an idea of where to start looking.”

  ***

  “Why is there a molerat running around the deck?” Thud asked.

  “That’s the ship cat,” Gammi said. “Mungo sheared ‘im this morning.”

  Thud looked across the room to where Mungo was. His false beard did have a distinctly fresh and calico look about it. They were belowdecks. There were dwarves snoring in hammocks, others doing a number of tasks that seemed focused on socks. Mungo had set up a temporary workshop at the aft end and looked to be in the process of inflating bladders.

  “Kinda envious o' his beard sometimes,” Thud said. He stroked his own thoughtfully. “Some leopard spots might be nice.”

  “I’m sure Mungo’d help get ya set up.” Gammi was going through a barrel of ship biscuits, using tweezers to extract the weevils. He’d promised everyone a fresh batch of weevil chowder for dinner. Thud left him to it and approached the calico bearded gnome.

  Mungo was holding a bellows. He was wearing a coat of sorts; a leather harness festooned with a half-dozen of the inflated bladders. He had a pile of harnesses on the bench behind him, each dangling with limp bladders awaiting inflation.

  “Where’d ya get all them bladders?”

  There was a swirling cloud of questions in Thud’s head and that happened to be the first one he managed to pluck from it.

  “Called in a favor from Durham during our excursion through the sheep market back in Karthor. Excellent items to have on hand. Surprising variety of uses.”

  “I’ll wager,” Thud said. “So, what use would you say you’re puttin' ‘em to here, for example?”

  “I call them bladder-buoys! It occurred to me that we are surrounded by water.”

  “I’d noticed that too.”

  “I took a quick poll and determined that the only person on the ship that can swim is Leery. A person strapped into a bladder-buoy, however, will float with ease!”

  “And we just go around wearin' these all the time is the idea?”

  “It can be taken on and off expediently. Perhaps a bit awkward to store though, once inflated.”

  “Well, go ahead and inflate and distribute ‘em. Should be good for a few laughs at least. I’ll send someone to help with the inflating.”

  “Right away.”

  “We may need to talk about the name though.”

  Mungo looked perplexed. “Everyone is always more worried about the name than how a thing works. Most confusing.”

  “I can see how they work,” Thud said. “I’m just thinking that if it’s a safety device that you want someone to wear then you’re going to want to give it a name that people are willing to put on and take off.”

  “How about the ‘wear this or die vest’?

  Thud nodded slowly, trying to look like he was at least giving the proposal some consideration. “Keep thinking on it.”

  The deck hatch opened and Durham’s feet appeared, followed by the rest of him in a mostly logical progression.

  “Well,” Thud said. “Speak his name and he appears. Our resident purveyor o' bladders.”

  Durham’s mouth was open as if he had been going to say something but was now reconsidering. Thud took great pleasure in derailing conversations with Durham before the lad had managed to embark.

  “Should I go up and come back in again?” Durham asked. “So I can be something other than the bladder merchant?”

  “Not at all!” Thud said. “In fact, that’s a thing I been wantin' to talk to you about.”

  “Bladders?” Durham looked alarmed.

  “No. Got a job for ya.”

  “Really?” Durham’s face brightened. Ever since they’d dropped their prior recovered artifact off at the Godspires, Durham had been flopping about like a loose pajama-flap in search of a butt-button. He’d asked to stay on if he could but apart from being clever and observant his skill set was limited.

  “You are now the official Dungeoneer cartographer!”

  Durham’s eyes acquired the glassy look they got when he had no idea what someone was talking about and was trying to think of something to say to obscure that fact while moving the conversation forward. Thud had learned to spot it from an entire conversation away.

  “I thought Ping was in charge of the carts,” Durham said.

  “Don’t tell me I speak yer own language better than you do. Maps, lad, maps! I want you to be our mapmaker. You’ve got that good eye for detail, should come natural to ya.”

  “I’ve never made a map before.”

  “That’s true of every cartographer that ain’t started out yet. Always gotta be a first one before you can go on to the second. Now, Mungo’s got some design paper there that he’s gonna let you have some of.”

  Mungo waved a sheaf of paper at him. “I used a monohedral tessellation for optimized directional flexibility.”

  “Do you have some that’s just squares?” Durham asked.

  “He’ll get you sorted,” Thud said. “Can get a quill and ink from Ruby. Tell her to grab a coin out of petty cash if she complains about it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a safe thing to say to Ruby.”

  “And maybe she can give ya some suggestions on how to go about making maps. I expect she’s looked at one or two in her day.”

  “What am I supposed to map?”

  “The dungeons, naturally. Measure ‘em out and record 'em. Very useful for not getting lost, finding hidden areas, that sorta th
ing.”

  “Just the dungeons?”

  “Well, anything that seems like it might be in need of mappin',” Thud said. “S'pose you can practice mappin' the ocean here if ya likes. Could get a lot of practice drawin' little waves.”

  ***

  They’d been among the Mosaic Islands for three days. Durham had spent much of that time sitting on a small stool near the bow, parchment and ink in hand. He’d look to one side, see the side of an island and draw a line. Then he’d look the other way, see another island there and draw another line. Then some waves in between them.

  Thud had reasoned that the Black Knife was large enough that whichever passage looked the largest was a good bet on how to proceed. Durham had dutifully drawn his lines and, much to his astonishment, after a time the lines started to make sense together, forming what almost looked like a river network. The mapping was fortunate. The path they’d followed had been serpentine, even twisting around on itself once or twice, requiring Durham to point this out to Thud lest he continue choosing the ‘largest’ channel and sending them in an eternal circle. The islands varied in size, their crags unique but, even still, after a time they started to look like simply another tree-covered lump of rock and became difficult to distinguish.

  But now they’d made a turn into a wide channel, the islands to either side low and covered with scrubby brush. Ahead, for the first time since they’d entered the islands, was open sea. The Cloud Sea, or the ‘Eye of the Islands’ as the merman had called it. Durham was delighted to see that it was living up to its name. A low bank of fog sat across the surface of the sea, distant, making the sea look like it faded off into clouds.

  “Sail to port!”

  Catchpenny’s voice from up in the rigging. Durham looked up to see which way he was looking as he wasn’t entirely sure which side of the ship was port. There, a ship, coming out of one of the other channel exits at full sail. Durham sighed with relief. It was too small to be the Black Knife. A merchant, maybe. While they were hoping to catch up with Laughing Larry’s pirate ship they didn’t want to do so by finding it in a flanking position.

  “She’s flying the black!” Catchpenny called.

  Durham’s sigh of relief turned into a gulp of wheezing.

  “Sail to starboard!”

  Keezix this time. Another ship. Durham couldn’t see the flag but the ship looked a twin to the first.

  The two ships that had followed after the Knife. Laughing Larry’s escorts.

  “Full sail!” Skulk yelled. “We’re faster! Make for the fog!”

  Dwarves scurried across the deck. Durham looked forward. How far was the fog? He had a hard time judging distance at sea. It looked like it was still near a mile away. The fog hung like a motionless wave, gray, topped with billows of white.

  And another sail, dark in the fog. The Black Knife. The clouds parted before it as it came.

  There was a whistle as a stone sailed past. A splash of water just to the side from a second missed shot. The pirates were firing their catapults, sighting in.

  Skulk’s maneuvering was taking them closer to the starboard ship. It was making for them, its rows of oars moving through the water relentlessly. They were close enough that Durham could hear the thump of their pace-drummer. Men were lining the deck, bows in hand, arrows ready.

  “Show me what ya got, Mungo!” Thud yelled.

  The gnome saluted and blew on a signal pipe. Dwarves made for Mungo’s row of mortars. Mostly vanguard dwarves, trap team filling out their numbers. Durham had only seen the mortars used for signaling. A firework that hung in the air, shining with brilliant crimson light.

  Another fweeep from the pipe and the dwarves all lit their fuses, dropping the shells into the tubes. A staccato of loud thumps echoed from the horizon as a half-dozen streaks of smoke arced into the air. The sea was painted red as the flares ignited, hanging in the sky in a cluster around the enemy ship.

  “Adjust aim!” Mungo’s squeak of a voice was just high-pitched enough to carry over the low growl of the waves.

  “Brace!” Skulk cried.

  There was a crash as a catapult stone slammed into the side of the ship. A second stone glanced from the bow rail, shattering the rail but deflecting into the sea. The arrows that followed were next to invisible in the light. One moment nothing, the next an arrow quivering in the barrel next to his hand, another in the deck a mere foot in front of him. Durham ducked behind the barrel only to promptly stick his head out again as the mortar tubes fired once more.

  The arcs of smoke were lower this time, the flares reflected in the sea as they flew. Several of the balls struck the pirate ship’s sails. The flares lost their momentum against the cloth, rolling down the sail’s surface and then catching on the cloth, hanging there, burning bright. Durham had spent ten minutes with Mungo helping poke the fish hooks into the shells. He’d been skeptical that it would work but now he was watching the flares igniting the sails, a ring of fire appearing around each before the cloth holding the flare burned away, dropping the still sparking shells to the decks below. The ship continued forward into one of the floating flares from the first volley, causing another spark of fire to begin taking hold in the rigging. The archers on deck were now scrambling with buckets.

  Durham felt the Squiffy lean as she swung back to port, distancing herself from the stricken ship. There were more splashes as the catapult stones went wide. Durham could see Clink manning the ballista, chewing his lip impatiently, waiting for anything to come into range. The ballista had less range than the pirate’s catapults but had a firing trajectory that lent itself to accuracy.

  The Black Knife was still holding back, sitting just within the edge of the mists, exploiting the range advantage of her massive deck-catapult. Durham watched as the black shape of another stone rose from her decks. Its size and direction made it seem to hang in the air like Mungo’s flares as it closed the distance. Durham opened his mouth to yell a warning that turned into a yelp as he dove for cover. The stone had gotten much larger and had done so very quickly. It punched through the deck with a tooth-rattling crunch, the entire ship tilting backward with the impact before lurching forward again.

  Durham scrambled toward the hole and looked down. The stone had destroyed the galley on its way through to the storage compartment below but hadn’t gone any further than that. It lay in a pile of splintered wood and cooking pots.

  “Douse lights!” he heard Skulk order. The mists were closing around around them, hiding the pursuing pirates from view, though Durham could still see the flickering orange light from the flames on the ship that had been trying to cut them off. If they couldn’t see the pirates did that mean the pirates couldn’t see them? He hoped so.

  There was a warning shout from Cardamon.

  Durham looked to the sky for more stones.

  Chapter Eight

  Cardamon knew there would be tentacles. Once the ocean got involved, there were always tentacles. Sometimes unexpectedly on your plate or tucked away in your soup. He could manage those well enough, generally by slipping them to Gong beneath the table. But those tentacles came from somewhere. That somewhere was an enormous place and they were in a tiny ship sitting on top of it.

  And there was a large tentacle on the horizon.

  ‘Tentacle’ and ‘horizon’ were not words Cardamon was pleased to have sharing a sentence but there it was. Reaching up from the mists and twisting against the dusk, black against the last deep reds of the sun. Was it merely large and closer than it seemed? Or was it truly as distant and enormous as it looked? Was this the Kraquid?

  “Batten hatches!” Skulk screamed from the wheel. “Come to! Get them sails furled!”

  “We’re stopping?” Thud asked. “Are ya mad?” He was next to Skulk, knuckles white on the rail. “Them pirates is right behind us.”

  “You don’t fight a sea-monster, matey, you survives it. There’s no outrunning that thing. So we tries to be of as little interest as possible. Maybe it won’t even n
otice us. But full sail and moving? That it’s going to see.”

  “Load The Negotiator!” Thud yelled, apparently wanting a plan B.

  “Ain’t had a chance to unload it yet!” Clink yelled from the foredeck. He was still in position at the ballista, waiting for something to shoot at.

  “We can’t stop here,” Thud said. “The pirates could come through that fog at any moment. Sittin' dead still between warships and that tentacle thing don’t seem the best way to get through this.”

  “They be seeing that monster too and they’re likely doing the same as we are. If they don’t, well, then, might be we end up with fewer pirates to worry about.”

  Dwarves were scrambling across the deck. The sails began sagging, raising and lowering in erratic jerks as arguments about furling techniques broke out at each mast. Ween ran back and forth between, waving his hands and shouting instructions. Cardamon was on hatch battening detail, mercifully, one of the much sought-after non-climbing positions.

  The tentacle curled back down and slid beneath the waves. The sails were furled and the ship drifted. Everyone was silent, watching the sea.

  There was a long ripple in the water to starboard, there and gone. Just a wave?

  A splash, over there. Cardamon’s stomach felt like it was squeezing lemons.

  The ship gave a sudden jerk as something moved it; turning it ten degrees to port in an instant and sending dwarves rolling across the deck.

  “Grab onto something!” Thud yelled. “Secure yourselves!”

  Cardamon wondered why he hadn’t battened the hatch with himself on the other side of it. He ducked behind a barrel. Ships always had barrels and crates to duck behind, no matter what deck you were on. It was one of his favorite features. Durham was crouched behind another barrel nearby. Cardamon gave him the shared nod of the professional.

  A tentacle rose from the water next to the ship, uncurling slowly, the water running down it in streams as the tip probed at the air as if sniffing. It was translucent, blue and purple light flickering within it. It was as tall as the main mast, its surface lined with rows of sucker cups. The tip reached forward, prodding at the lines and spars for a bit before splitting midway down its length, blooming into a dozen smaller tentacles. Cardamon didn’t know that tentacles could do that. Leastways he was pretty sure that octopuses didn’t do that sort of thing. The tentacles quested out in all directions, seeming to grow as needed to reach, stretching and getting longer, some splitting again into yet smaller tentacles, wrapping their way around the lines and the mast. They began feeling their way across the deck, slowly, probing and testing as they advanced. Thousands of suckers wriggled along their lengths, mouths gasping with flabby lips.