The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series)

by Marian Perera

  He knew just how much he had lost—or given up or thrown away, he was forced to admit—along with Maree and their child, but for the first time he wondered how she would have felt about it. She had been proud of him, but he hadn’t done a great deal to be proud of in the past five years.

  No, there was no point in idle speculation. When he found her, she could say anything she liked and he’d accept it gladly, if only he could have her back.

  He made himself as comfortable as possible on the boat, which was not comfortable at all but infinitely safer than being belowdecks. Gradually the storm blew itself out. The waves sank down. The sky grumbled, fell silent and grew light in the east. They were sailing into the sunrise as the search began.

  Julean knew better than to underestimate the Tureans again. It was only a matter of time before they looked over the side. He could cut away the ropes binding the boat, but he had no intention of rowing off alone through the Iron Ocean.

  Ropes. That was an idea.

  Voices came closer to the gunwale, and he heard what they said even over the flap of rainsodden canvas and shouted commands. “There’s bad luck and there’s ill fate and which one d’you think we got? First Rorqual sinks, then there’s a Deen on board and an albatross…” The words trailed off uneasily.

  “I heard he killed Ranost,” another Turean replied. An unpleasant metallic snick-snick sounded when he moved, and Julean had no wish ever to find out what made that noise, but from the voices he knew they stood at the same point he had climbed over. Wood creaked as they bent over the gunwale to look at the rowboat.

  No, I haven’t left anything there. Just after the search began, he had tied himself beneath the boat, his back to its keel, and he swung in a harness of ropes, looking straight down into the white foam of the galley’s wake. If they started hauling the boat up he would cut himself free, but he hoped his luck would hold a little longer.

  Luck? Or the Unity?

  After Maree’s ship had been lost with all hands, he had done everything he could to find her, finally going to a quiet communion chamber in Skybeyond to plead with the Unity. He gazed up at the ceiling above which was the only person or entity who could help, and promised to do anything if the Unity brought Maree and their baby back safely.

  The silence was so empty it echoed. Julean had never prayed again until the previous night—except that prayer had been answered.

  Was the albatross’s fall just a coincidence, or did it mean the Unity did hear supplications and answer them, on occasion? Except when it came to his love for his wife, Julean was logical and rational, and he found himself thinking of the difference between his two requests. The previous night, he had needed a distraction, anything to make the Tureans look away from him for a few moments, but five years ago, he had asked for his wife to be returned. What if the Unity couldn’t do that? Because she was—

  No, he wasn’t going to think that. It would be tantamount to burying her before he even found her body, and although the hope of finding her was a fraying thread, it was all that held him above despair. He touched the silver locket, his talisman. I’ll find you.

  The locket was one of the few things that sustained him over the next two days. That, and what he’d taken from the surgery supplies—a phial of laudanum and dried poppy pods wrapped in a twist of waxed paper. At first he felt guilty, because the drugs weren’t his personal property. They were meant for seriously injured or sick crewmen, and while his theft hadn’t exhausted the supplies, he’d put the crew that much closer to surgery without sedatives. Darok would want him strung up from a yardarm.

  After a while, though, he felt nothing but discomfort that turned into agony. He couldn’t move during the day, and his limbs went from numbness to cramping spasms from the bound, unmoving posture, while his back was rubbed raw from being scraped against the keel. He washed the poppy pods down with sips of the water in his flask, and told himself in a rare moment of lucidity that it wouldn’t be much longer.

  Or would it? He’d thought the galley would rendezvous with the rest of the Turean flotilla, but what if it headed for an island instead? An island far away? He imagined the Tureans lifting the boat over the side weeks later and finding a decomposed body still bound to its keel.

  Once night fell, he loosened the ropes and crawled into the boat, moving as though his arms and legs had been recently broken—which was just how they felt. He was ravenously hungry too, but that soon passed as thirst took over. Teeth set, he stretched each limb in turn, grimly and methodically. Blood flowed back into them like liquid iron, but he began to feel more like himself. Whoever I am now.

  He couldn’t remain in the boat and had to return to the rope harness below. By the end of the second day, he wanted to die. His eyes were stinging and swollen from the fine mist of seaspray striking them, while the poppy pods dulled the pain but were starting to give him waking nightmares. Sparing though he had been with his water, the flask was empty by the second night, and praying to the Unity didn’t fill it. Only the boat shielding him from the sun kept him from being thirstier.

  One more night like this will kill me. He fought through a fog to think what to do if the galley kept moving through an endless ocean. Only one choice—get into the boat, cut it loose and hope he could escape before anyone noticed the loss. Then what? No food, no water and no chance of finding anyone who might know of Maree or her ship.

  When he saw the galleys, tiny and distant in the red afternoon light, he thought he was hallucinating, but soon the shouts on deck penetrated even his exhaustion. Bowhead reached the flotilla by nightfall. Julean waited tensely, listening as an officer ordered a boat to be lowered. Two of those hung from the galley’s port side, so he had a fifty-fifty chance of being discovered.

  They took the other boat. The sun was a sinking ember by then, but Julean saw the boat’s destination—another galley very near, perhaps only thirty or forty yards away. Another three-master, it was larger than the others, though in the poor light he couldn’t make out the exact shape of its prow.

  He squinted at the name painted on its hull. Dreadnaught. Most likely the flagship, since any captain returning from a disastrous skirmish would have to make his report in person to his superiors. Someone on that galley might be able to give him answers.

  Whether or not they could, he had to leave, in case Bowhead started offloading injured men to other vessels. The sun crawled beneath the horizon while he waited, frustration pushing him that much closer to the edge. He knew he was only hours away from lapsing into unconsciousness or delirium.

  He longed for a smoke, but he hadn’t brought any cheroots with him and the Tureans wouldn’t have ignored smoke drifting up from beneath a boat. Night fell, and lanterns glowed behind the few windows of the galleys. Julean loosened the ropes for the last time and dragged himself aboard the rowboat, trembling. His tongue was dry and swollen in his mouth.

  He scooped up a few handfuls of water from the bottom of the boat. It was brackish, as he had expected, half rain and half seawater, but it revived him just enough that he was able to think again. Dreadnaught was so close he could have swum to it as soon as the agonizing cramps left his stiff limbs, but then what? If he climbed up to a window, how could he be certain he wouldn’t open it to see half a dozen Tureans? Besides, windows weren’t likely to adorn the common quarters, so chances were he’d be entering the captain’s stateroom, or whatever the equivalent was on a galley.

  On the other hand, the captain or first officer would be more likely to have heard of Dragonfly’s disappearance and her crew’s fate. He just had to confront them on his own terms—which meant slipping unnoticed aboard their vessel.

  He unlooped a rope and tied the other end around his empty hip flask before lowering that into the waves. Once the flask was full, he drew it back up, recapped it and tucked it into a pocket. By then his arms and legs had passed from painful spasms to wet-rag consistency, but it was nothing compared to what his wife would have gone through if the pirates ha
d captured her.

  That made him forget everything else. He knotted the rope to a thwart and lowered himself into the water.

  One of Dreadnaught’s windows glowed directly ahead as he swam slowly to the galley, trying not to splash or exert himself too much. Getting a cramp would be almost as fatal as being sighted by a lookout, and he saw them on the galley’s deck, dark figures backlit by lanterns. Well, here’s something to occupy you. Treading water, he hefted the hip flask.

  He threw it straight through the window. Glass shattered as he brought his hands together and plunged sideways into a dive. He swam hard, pushing himself to the breaking point to circle the galley. The prow, was he under the prow? When he surfaced to gasp, wood coated in slime scraped the top of his head. He swam arm-over-arm and glanced back once to see the galley’s prow. It was a huge, crudely carved fist clutching an iron chain that swung like a pendulum.

  But it was behind him, which meant the lookouts would have hurried to the galley’s other side to see what had smashed the window, what might be trying to get in. Julean cleared the prow completely, floated on his back and looked up. Twelve feet above his head was another window, this one dark.

  A mooring rope hung down nearby. He caught it and climbed up to the window. Either the Unity was watching over him or the Tureans on board the flagship had no fear of intruders, because the window swung open. A moment later, he was inside Dreadnaught.

  In the dark and silent cabin, he smelled food.

  His stomach came to growling life, but he didn’t move away from the window. For all he knew, the smell was an olfactory hallucination and he couldn’t afford to be careless. Reaching behind him, he closed the window with a soft thck. The moonlight through the glass wasn’t enough for him to see a hand in front of his face.

  Keeping a wall at his back, he made a shuffling circuit of the room. One side of the cabin was given over to bookshelves of some sort—the shape was wrong, but papers rustled against his skin—and the door, when he found it, was closed. But there was no latch or bolt he could have slid to lock it.

  He could deal with that later. For now, he was alone in an empty room with food.

  He found the edge of a table and felt the implements on it. His fingers slid over a plate and on to the flaking crust of a loaf, but although he wanted nothing more than to bite into the bread, he forced himself to keep searching the table. His mouth was so dry, and the bread would only make it drier.

  He touched the cool rounded side of a flask, and what was inside sloshed. Not seawater, please let it not be seawater. The flask was sealed in wax, but there was a knife beside the bread and he cut the seal away with trembling fingers. The liquid inside tasted like nectar, and he could have wept in relief if suspicion hadn’t leaped into his mind. Why would food and drink just be left out in a darkened room?

  He swallowed another mouthful of the liquid and made himself put the bottle down. Beside it was a hard cylinder that felt slightly greasy beneath his fingers—a candle, he knew as he searched for a tinderbox. He lit the candle.

  I’m in a chapel.

  Or whatever the Tureans called it, though he had guessed where he was already. Bookcases, ceremonial food and candles: it all added up to a chapel. No one in Denalay would have prepared food for the Unity, but then again he didn’t think the Unity actually ate. Turean gods were more like extremely powerful people, so of course they had to be served food.

  None of which changed the fact that he was hungry. He bit into the loaf, chewing and swallowing as fast as he could, then washed the meal down with more of the nectar. Maybe the Tureans would think their gods had eaten it.

  Maybe you shouldn’t underestimate them again.

  Still, perhaps he could confront a priest or worshipper in relative privacy rather than searching the galley for someone who could give him answers. He looked around, heart sinking as he realized there was nowhere in the room to hide. The shelves—actually pigeonholes for parchments that looked about to crumble at a touch—were built into the walls, and the only furniture was a wooden chest serving as the table.

  Julean tried opening it with no success, and he had no idea how to pick locks. In the end, all he could do was select the sharpest knife from among the implements and blow out the candle before crouching down on the other side of the chest.

  You’re a fool. The rational side of his mind sounded resigned and tired, but it seemed to have revived a little after the meal. You’ve thrown away everything.

  For Maree, he replied stubbornly. For my wife and for our child. If our positions had been reversed…

  He stopped there, trying to imagine his wife homeless and hungry and alone in the hands of their enemies. No, he would never have wanted that for her, would never have asked that of her. He would gladly have died alone rather than know Maree had thrown away everything of value in her life to follow him. And she would have felt the same way.

  Despair settled over him, heavy as a leaden cloak. He closed his hand around the locket that contained the only portrait of his wife, but for once the familiar talisman worked no magic on him. Instead he remembered how the Tureans on Bowhead had seen the locket, had known it wasn’t something a common seaman would wear. He took it off and pushed it deep into a pocket where it would be safe.

  Resting his head against the wooden chest, he longed to close his eyes and wake again safe on Denalay, or on Daystrider. Or not wake at all. He needed an hour’s rest and then he could think of what to do next.

  The door opened. On soft feet a Turean walked in and shadows slid along the walls from another candle. The footsteps stopped abruptly and Julean knew the man was staring at the empty places where food and wine had been.

  Quick, before he raises an alarm. Julean rose, the knife clutched tightly in one hand. The Turean was on the other side of the wooden chest, and he jerked back in shock, wax spattering from his candle as it dropped to the chest’s surface. Julean grabbed the man’s wrist with his free hand and pulled him forward, bringing up the knife as he did so. The tip of it indented the man’s throat.

  “Call for help and you’re dead.” His voice rasped so badly he didn’t recognize it, but at least the despair was gone. No matter how much of a ruin he’d made of his life, he couldn’t simply give up and wait to be killed.

  The Turean didn’t move. The candle continued to burn, so close Julean could see sweat on the man’s skin. His shirt and breeches were of rough cloth mottled blue and grey, in patterns that seemed to twist and blend into each other, but although he didn’t seem to carry any weapons, the arm Julean gripped felt thick-muscled and strong. He was younger too, and it was probably only startlement that gave Julean an advantage. That and the knife.

  “I need to know this,” he said. The Turean had closed the door upon entering the chapel, so no one was likely to hear him unless he shouted. “Tell me the truth and I’ll let you go. Have you heard of a Denalait ship called Dragonfly?”

  The Turean shook his head, staring at Julean as if he couldn’t yet believe what was happening.

  “That ship was lost just north of the Broken Ring. If the survivors had been taken prisoner, where would they be?”

  “The Broken Ring.” The Turean’s voice was a whisper, but he winced as his throat moved minutely against the knifepoint. “Unless some of them were sent to Scorpitale or the Altar. When was the ship lost?”

  Julean’s heart sank like an anchor. “Five years ago.”

  “Five years?” The Turean actually raised his voice, and Julean prodded his throat. He didn’t seem to notice. “They’re not likely…”

  He stopped and swallowed. Blood trickled down his neck. “Well, they could be anywhere in the isles. Nion might know.”

  No. The despair rushed back in full force, because the man had been more honest the first time. Maree wasn’t likely to be alive by then, not after five years. He tried to think of any circumstances under which prisoners might have lasted that long, but no one would have been held for ransom for five years.
>
  “Would your people have kept the women as…” A stone had lodged in his throat, and he fought to clear it. “As bed slaves?”

  The Turean’s lip curled. “We have women of our own. And mainlander slaves are more trouble than they’re worth, what with our water not being good enough for them. Is that why you came on board?”

  Julean’s hand shook, as it had never done when he had performed surgery. If the Tureans considered adult Denalaits too much trouble, they weren’t likely to bother raising a Denalait child.

  “If the survivors of that ship were killed,” he said, “where could I find their remains?”

  “On the Isle of Bones.”

  “That’s a lie. I know you only bury your own kind there.”

  “What the hell do you expect me to say to a madman who’s got a knife to my neck?”

  The door opened. The Turean turned in that direction at once, careless of the blade scraping a shallow furrow through his flesh, and Julean slid out from behind the chest, getting behind the Turean. “Nion,” the man gasped, but as he tried to pull away, Julean twisted his arm up behind his back. With the knife digging that much deeper into his throat, the man didn’t struggle. Julean smelled the hot coppery scent of blood.

  The man who had entered, the one addressed as Nion, didn’t move from his position in the doorway. His hands were empty and his face utterly blank. Julean felt more afraid than before.

  “Raise an alarm and he dies,” he said through numb lips.

  “Everyone dies.” Nion might have been gently correcting a young student. “You and I and the islands and the world itself. But for now I am more interested in who sent you.”

  Julean wondered whether he meant Darok. “No one sent me.”

  “Nion.” The other Turean’s voice was choked and terrified. “He’s mad—”