Islands of the Inner Sea

by L J Chappell

  As they ate, the others simply listened while the conversation progressed, not matching Vander’s enthusiasm for the subject. Finally, as the meal reached its long drawn-out conclusion, it became apparent that everyone had drunk a little too much sweet wine: everyone except perhaps Captain Redwolf and Kiergard Slorn.

  Lanvik only realised that he needed to lie down when he reached the cabin; and he only realised that he was too dizzy to lie down in the rolling ship when he actually tried. It was quite clear to him that he was going to vomit.

  The cabin had a single window which he could perhaps have used, but the greased storm shutters were closed in the evenings. He considered making a dash for the toilets, but wasn’t confident that he would manage the vertical ladder downwards. Instead he dashed up the stairs to the deck, and threw up over the side of the ship.

  As he stood there, leaning over the side and spitting from time to time, Magda joined him.

  ‘Here,’ she passed him a flask of water.

  He took it gratefully and rinsed out his mouth. ‘Thank you.’

  She looked over the side, to where the wind had blown his vomit in a long streak along the side of the ship. ‘First the donkey and now the ship,’ she remarked. ‘Remind me never to carry you anywhere.’ He had also been sick when they first rescued him.

  He groaned back at her.

  ‘Seasick?’

  ‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘too much wine.’

  ‘Ah yes, your meal with the captain. I saw you getting ready: it was very funny, especially when you pulled those faces.’

  ‘Faces?’

  ‘Yes. You do it when you shave. It’s so funny that it’s difficult not to laugh.’

  He glowered at her, but she thought that was funny as well.

  She patted him on the back. ‘Ethryk and Menska are not the best sailors – I believe they use several remedies against sea sickness which I understand are effective to a degree. But not to any useful degree. Perhaps they would be more use against the effects of strong drink.’

  She led him back down to their cabins, to look for Menska.

  2

  Lanvik’s difficulty sleeping wasn’t only caused by the movement of the ship. His pillow was also awkward and uncomfortable on account of what was hidden under it, wrapped in cloth: the Emerald Crown, one of the Four Trophies of the Dead God.

  Kiergard Slorn had stolen it and now did not completely trust Captain Redwolf to honour his privacy, so he had given it to Lanvik for safekeeping. Slorn was closer to Bane and Magda and trusted them more, of course, but for that reason they might also be obvious targets for anyone’s curiosity. Another reason was that Lanvik already knew he had the Crown – his own curiosity had led him to search through Slorn’s things: so far, Slorn had not told the rest of the Company about it, and might not intend to.

  “Stolen” was perhaps not the best word: the Emerald Crown had been left in plain view, and people had been encouraged to try to lift it from the Statue of the Dead God. Perhaps it was more accurate that he had simply taken it and not told anyone. He had replaced it with a copy, in order to delay discovery of what he had done.

  Lanvik didn’t imagine that the authorities in Darkfall had even considered what to do in this situation: people had been trying to remove the Crown for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Given the prophecies and legends associated with it, it was inconceivable that someone might succeed but then choose to conceal the fact. When its loss was discovered, the authorities might well keep quiet about it given that the three-yearly Festival was the principal livelihood of Darkfall – probably of all Tremark.

  When he woke the next morning with his neck stiff and sore, he waited until the others were out of the cabin and moved the Emerald Crown, in its folded cloth covers, back into his pack. It was simply the wrong size and shape to keep under his head: it left him far too uncomfortable to sleep properly.

  Vorrigan had chosen to sleep in the bunk above Karuin: that left the berth above Lanvik empty for their belongings. He put his pack up there, next to Vorrigan’s. It was in the open, visible, and anyone could look inside if they wanted to but he told himself that no-one would bother – everyone knew he had nothing. It would be just as safe, perhaps more safe, as when it had been a suspicious lump under his pillow.

  He was curious about Kiergard Slorn’s plans for the Emerald Crown, but for the first few days aboard ship there was no opportunity to talk privately. Slorn had been given a separate cabin for the journey, while the rest of the Company shared four small cabins below. Lanvik decided to visit him the day after they had shared Captain Redwolf’s dinner.

  ‘Lanvik. Come in, come in.’ Kiergard Slorn was alone.

  Once the door was closed behind them, he had held one finger to his lips and pointed around the walls and the floors: he suspected that there might be unseen listeners. So Lanvik had made idle conversation instead. ‘I thought I’d come and see how your cabin compared with our own cramped quarters.’

  ‘You have more space than the crew. A number of them only have hammocks, they mostly have no space of their own, and what they have, they share in shifts.’

  ‘I wasn’t comparing with them: they’re not paying passengers.’

  Slorn laughed: ‘I see. And what do you think of my cabin, now you’ve seen it?’ As he spoke, he nodded to the door.

  ‘It’s pretty basic,’ Lanvik admitted. ‘And much smaller than I thought. But you’ve still got more space than the rest of us.’

  ‘Perhaps the Company should take turns sleeping here? One night each?’ Slorn lifted his jacket from the bed and put it on.

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ Lanvik agreed, opening the cabin door.

  They walked out on deck together. The weather was dry and the sun was high in the sky, but the brisk wind from behind made them feel cold. They walked to the front of the forecastle, jutting out slightly above the rest of the ship, and leaned on the rail there. The area was busy with equipment – coiled ropes, buoys, barrels, wooden bollards and so on – but there was no-one else there.

  Slorn checked over the edge as well: sometimes crew worked off the sides of the ship, on ropes or slings.

  ‘This is the safest place to talk, if you want to,’ he said. ‘The rest of the ship is upwind, so our voices won’t carry.’

  ‘You think there’s someone listening. At your cabin?’

  ‘Probably not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was. Also, I think it’s probably best to face forwards now, in case they have people proficient at reading lips. What did you want to say?’

  ‘I was wondering how you’re resisting coming down to have a look at the Crown.’

  ‘With difficulty,’ Kiergard Slorn admitted. ‘And how are you resisting practicing your own magecraft, Master Wizard? Recovering your skills?’ Despite everyone else addressing him as “Lanvik”, Slorn still called him “Master Wizard” from time to time; when no-one would overhear them.

  ‘It’s hard,’ Lanvik agreed. He had an urge, almost an instinct, to practice during these quiet, idle days aboard ship – he didn’t know what he would do, but he felt the need to try something. But they were keeping these things – the Crown, and Lanvik’s possible magecraft – to themselves: Captain Redwolf and his crew might seem like their friends, but everyone knew there were secrets on both sides that were not being shared.

  ‘What do you expect from it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s magical, they say. It bestows powers of some sort. The legends aren’t specific about all the details, but they are confident that anyone who gathers all the Trophies together can summon and command the Undead Army.’

  ‘Have you tried it? Tried putting it on?’

  ‘A couple of times in Stormhaven when I was alone, yes. And I concentrated on magical thoughts: commanding the elements, trying to force things to happen with my mind.’

  ‘And?’ Lanvik was curious – that was more or less what he’d been doing as well, to try and trigger some memory of his own magecraft.


  ‘Nothing so far. The only thing I’ve discovered is that it’s heavy to wear, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.’

  ‘But you were able to take it. When I tried, it was stuck rigid. It didn’t even feel as if it was attached in any way. It felt like a part of the Statue, not separate at all. But you managed.’

  ‘I just lifted it up. I mean, it was a bit stiff, a bit dusty on the inside, but it came away easily enough.’

  ‘Well, that has to mean something. The Crown is treating you differently from all the thousands of people who’ve tried in the past. Millions, perhaps. It thinks you’re special.’

  ‘What about you – have you tried to use it? The Crown?’

  ‘What? The Crown? No, I haven’t.’ It hadn’t even occurred to Lanvik to try.

  ‘You have it right next to you. There must be times when no-one else is in the room, when you’re alone. You could even block the door, if you wanted. In Urthgard, everyone believed you had magical abilities, even if you’re not convinced yourself: even if you’ve forgotten how to use them. So if any one of us can unlock its secrets, then maybe it’s you. Perhaps it might react to you in some way, do something more in your presence than it’s done in mine.’

  ‘I couldn’t even lift it from the Statue,’ Lanvik disagreed.

  ‘I know, but I thought you might try anyway.’

  ‘Do you want me to?’

  ‘Maybe later. Perhaps your powers would trigger some kind of reaction. But certainly not here, not aboard the Night Princess: there are too many watching eyes.’

  ‘So, after this mission’s complete.’

  ‘We are still many days way from our delivery. Hopefully we will have some privacy, some time to ourselves, before then. You haven’t had any problems keeping the Crown safe?’

  ‘No. There’s normally someone in the cabin – Karuin and Vorrigan are there now.’ He had left them half an hour before, setting up the pieces for a game that they sometimes played together.

  ‘Well, be wary of anyone else …’

  ‘I will be,’ Lanvik promised.

  ‘I know,’ Kiergard Slorn nodded.

  After that, Lanvik went back below deck. Vorrigan was at the door to his cabin. ‘She’s too good for me,’ he said ruefully as they passed.

  The board was still sitting on a small table, with the small disk-pieces in their final positions. Vorrigan and Karuin, together with a number of the others, had taken to playing the game from time to time: perhaps they had brought the board and pieces with them in one of the trunks, or they’d borrowed a set from one of the crew.

  ‘Do you play?’ Karuin asked, indicating the board.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t,’ he shook his head. It didn’t look at all familiar.

  ‘Here. I’ll show you, if you like.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I’d like that.’ It would be another way to pass the time and to fit in better with the larger group, to do more of the things that they did together – those of them that played, at least. There were a couple of card and dice games that he’d already learned.

  ‘The game is called Fugitive,’ she told him, moving the disks into two rows on each side. ‘Each side starts with eighteen disks, one of which is the Fugitive.’ She held up one of the disks, and then put it down on the board. ‘There’s a Safe Square directly opposite where the Fugitive starts. If you get your Fugitive across to it first, then you win. If your opponent captures your Fugitive, you lose. That’s pretty much it.’

  Of course that wasn’t “pretty much it”, at all.

  The other seventeen disks comprised two Castles, two Temples, a Mage, a Dragon, an Emperor and an Empress, and three each of Slaves, Farmers and Soldiers. The players took turns to move one of their pieces on the board, from square to square, in ways unique to their type. Each type of piece had its own symbol, drawn on the top of the disc in white on brown, or brown on white.

  At first, as Karuin explained the rules to him, the game sounded impossibly complex but once they actually started playing it made a lot more sense. After they had made a few moves each, the level of concentration and focus that he needed dropped back to the point that he could maintain a conversation as well.

  ‘Does everyone else play?’ he asked.

  ‘Most of them. Some better than others. If you stay with the Company, you’ll find we have a lot of long journeys with nothing to do, so we all know a few of the same games. Different people are more accomplished at different games.’

  She moved one of her Farmers to threaten his Mage and he moved it back, out of trouble. She used the same piece to take one of his Slaves instead, and asked: ‘So, are you going to stay with us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I like being part of the Company, and I like all of you. But without my memories, it’s difficult to make long-term decisions. I probably should be doing something completely different from this. I must have an entire life, somewhere else, waiting for me … I mean, obviously I do. But without knowing what that life is, I can’t choose between that one and this one. I know it sounds crazy after two weeks, but this is the only life I know.’

  ‘I understand,’ she nodded. ‘But you don’t have to stay with us until you get your memory back. If you want to do something different, or if you can think of some way that might help you to remember, then you have to leave. You have to pursue that, even if you feel in our debt.’

  That was true: he did feel in their debt. They had rescued him, and then they had taken him in – clothed him and fed him and looked after him even though, so far, he had brought no useful skills. He couldn’t remember any magecraft, if he’d ever had any; he didn’t know how to fight; and he couldn’t even learn to play a tambourine. The Company sometimes disguised themselves as a troupe of performers and they were all accomplished musicians. Except him.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I know.’

  He frowned at the board – somehow he was two pieces down already: she had taken four of his and he had only taken two of hers. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘How long have you been with the Company?’

  ‘Almost three years,’ she told him. ‘Not nearly so long as some of the others, but still – a long time.’ She moved a piece and added: ‘They kidnapped me.’

  ‘That seems quite common. Is it their standard recruiting method?’

  ‘It seems that way, yes,’ she agreed. ‘But it was a bit of an accident. I come from Immenar. Do you know it?’

  ‘I don’t know anywhere,’ he shook his head.

  ‘It’s one of the little principalities of the Steppes, on the east side of the High Divide. There’s no reason you should have heard of it. It’s a little place: flat rich land and big warm skies, but no-one really goes there and no-one from there really goes anywhere else. We’re farmers, mostly, and the only thing we do that anyone else might notice is export grain.

  ‘I grew up on a farm – almost everyone does in Immenar – but I always wanted some kind of adventure. I used to dream of romantic strangers from faraway lands, who would somehow find me and take me away into their story. I used to dream of riches and luxury and wondrous places.

  ‘That was when I was a little girl.

  ‘Over time, I started keeping the accounts at home and I trained to do the other paperwork: I handled the contracts, the purchases and sales, the wages for the farmhands. We kept a little livestock and the breeding records were complex, but I had an aptitude for complexity and an obsession over accuracy and precision. The kind of obsession that can be useful in the right circumstances.

  ‘As I grew up, I began to think about leaving home – going into the wider world beyond the farm and leaving my childhood behind: that would be my adventure. So that’s what I did, but that turned out to be dull as well. Whatever it is that the farms in Immenar lack, the towns also lack. And then I pair-bonded and together we had three children, lovely children, and they took all my thoughts and dreams and time. But when they started their schooling, I found an empty space again and I
remembered that I had always wanted an adventure. And having children hadn’t changed that. That hadn’t been my adventure, after all.’

  Lanvik had already realised that Karuin was older than he had first guessed, and he began to wonder just how much older. Perhaps he wasn’t as good at reading Madarinn faces as he had thought.

  ‘When my children were able to care for themselves through the day, I started working for a company in Targidene: that’s the capital. They export grain and import building and farming equipment, and they needed someone who could work with numbers and with words. It was perfect for me, the same as I’d done on my family’s farm but on a larger scale: making up accounts and invoices and purchase orders, checking the terms and conditions in contracts, calculating harbour tariffs and so on.

  ‘It even had a certain romance: not exactly an adventure, but the same flavour as an adventure.

  ‘I talked to some of the partners who’d travelled outside Immenar, even though their impressions of foreign lands could be distilled to a simple list of unpleasant differences. And I used to sit in a little room on the top floor and read the far-off names in the ledgers. Sometimes, when papers came back from these places, stamped and grubby, I smelled them before I filed them, and I could imagine myself there.’

  Lanvik laughed.

  ‘I’m serious,’ she assured him. ‘Those little pieces of paper carried a thousand strange scents, and each one told of a romantic, distant land. I used to sit in the evenings, after my children and my pair-bond had gone to bed, and dream of those faraway places: dreams cobbled together from the half-facts and rumours that I had heard, from the timetables and advertisements of the riverboats, the complaints of my fellows, the occasional glimpse of an oddly-dressed stranger in Targidene and the tired and faded smells that lingered on those scraps of paper.’

  She interrupted her story briefly. His hand was resting on his Empress, which he was considering moving into a more active position: she tapped one of her Temples, currently pinned in place by the Empress: ‘Pay more attention,’ she told him. And then she continued: