by Perrin Briar
His voice was craggy and stiff, without much inflection. Here was a man unused to making apologies.
“I knew another man to speak as you do,” he said. “He was a British spy.”
“I’m not a spy,” Bryan said. “None of us are. We’re just a family who got lost.”
“Lost,” Stoneheart said. “There is no getting lost. Which side do you belong to?”
“Side?” Bryan said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Side, side,” Stoneheart said in irritation. “You’re clearly not pirates, so you must be British.”
“We’re not British,” Bryan said.
“An Outlander, then?” Stoneheart said.
“I don’t know what an Outlander is,” Bryan said.
“Someone from the Outlands,” Stoneheart said. “Almost as bad as being British.”
“We’re neither British nor Outlanders,” Bryan said.
“Then you must be pirates,” Stoneheart said. “But you don’t strike me as particularly pirate-like.”
“That’s because we’re not,” Bryan said.
“Then I’m confused,” Stoneheart said. “You’re not pirates, British, nor Outlanders. Then you must be spirits. And spirits must be laid to rest.”
The crew lifted lengths of rope and loosened knives from their belts. Black teeth glistened in reeking mouths.
“Woah, woah!” Bryan said, waving his hands. “We came here through a sinkhole. We’re looking for the Passage to take us back home.”
“Passage?” Stoneheart said. “You’re seeking passage aboard my ship?”
“No,” Bryan said. “We wish to find something called the Passage. It’s a twin of the type of doorway that brought us here in the first place, only this one will take us out of here.”
“There is no way out of here, save off the edge of my blade,” Stoneheart said. “And I’m more than willing to share it with you.”
“Thank you, but we’d prefer to leave here while we’re in one piece,” Bryan said.
“That can be arranged,” Stoneheart said. “Though you will have a few more holes in you than you currently sport.”
The pirates were getting restless, bored. Diplomacy had failed. They were going to do something if Bryan didn’t convince Stoneheart to spare them soon.
It was now or never. He needed to get the pistol out and defend his family.
He reached into his pants, gripped the pistol Jim had given him, and brought it out. It caught on his belt, twisted in his grip, and skidded across the deck.
The pirates looked from the pistol to Bryan. If Bryan had a full bladder, it would have emptied across the front of his pants at that moment. Their looks were distant, the kind he imagined that came over a murderer’s face, cold fury bubbling just below the surface.
And then one of them chuckled. It caught, and another pirate laughed. Then a third, more uproariously than the last, and it spread through the whole crew until they were all bawling like children.
“That’s enough!” Stoneheart said.
The crew stopped laughing immediately, wiping away their tears.
Jim felt at his own pants, feeling for the pistol he knew should have been there, and glared at Bryan. His performance was excellent.
Jim snapped his pistol out of the hand of a pirate who had scooped it up and slapped Bryan across the chin with it.
Bryan, wide eyed, rubbed at his stinging cheek. He knew it was all part of the show, but there was nothing fake about the pain he felt as the blood rushed to his skin and made him blush.
“Picked your pocket, did he, Jim?” Stoneheart said, amusement in his tone. “Perhaps he isn’t so useless after all.”
“Pick my pocket again, and he won’t be able to wipe his arse,” Jim said. “I’ll take his fingers from both hands.”
“Now that’s a sight I’d like to see,” Stoneheart said in a tone that suggested he might just allow that to happen.
“Though I suppose he won’t be able to perform his duties particularly well if that were to befall him,” Jim was quick to add.
“We can always stitch his digits back on after I’ve gotten my laugh,” Stoneheart said.
“Sure,” Jim said. “I suppose he doesn’t need his fingers for telling tales.”
“Tales?” Stoneheart said.
“Yes,” Jim said. “Didn’t I tell you? They’re from the surface.”
Stoneheart ran his one remaining eye over the family, before finally fixing Jim with a squint.
“You’re certain of this?” Stoneheart said.
“They told me about it on the way here,” Jim said. “They have a great number of stories.”
Stoneheart thought for a full minute before pursing his lips and making a pop noise.
“Haul up the anchor, we’re casting off,” he said.
“What of the prisoners?” a pirate—Bryan recognized him as Smithy—said.
“Prisoners?” Stoneheart said. “I see no prisoners. I see four new recruits. Give them their duties.”
He turned on his heel and headed back to his cabin, slamming the door behind himself.
“You heard the captain!” Jim said. “We’re casting off!”
The crew were suddenly alive with activity, rushing about the deck.
“Thank you,” Zoe said to Jim. “I thought we were going to be forced into a sticky position then.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Jim said. “We haven’t even cast off yet. I can already see half a dozen knives flashing in their scabbards.”
The family cast looks over their shoulders, but didn’t see any exposed knives. That worried them even more. They might be alive at the moment, but for how much longer?
8
THE LACK of sleep was beginning to catch up to the family. It didn’t help the chores they’d been assigned were menial in nature and did not require the use of more than a single brain cell, lulling them into a zombie-like trance. The tasks were so simple a trained monkey could have carried them out, which was fortunate, as they were about the capability of the average crew member.
Cassie and Aaron performed each task, predominantly cleaning and scrubbing, as if it was the worst thing they had ever had to do in their lives. Perhaps it was. In a less life-threatening situation Bryan might have considered it a valuable learning experience for the youngsters.
The heat was stifling, overbearing. They might have been in an oven. Bryan hadn’t worked his body this hard since he was a teenager on old man Mason’s farm. Bryan may have attempted to bribe the good captain, unfortunately he doubted US dollars would count much to a man down here, underground, where slips of funny green paper was of less value to him than a new sharp blade and someone to insert it in.
And Bryan knew who those bodies might belong to.
Each time Bryan glanced up, he caught hungry eyes hastily turning away, and the sudden need to redouble their efforts on the task in hand.
Zoe and Cassie covered themselves up the best they could, but no matter how many clothes they put on, how much effort they put into ensuring they did not look nor move in a provocative way, they seemed to be the center of attention for the crew. They were dogs in heat and there was little the girls could do about it. Hopefully, their fear of Stoneheart outweighed their base desires.
“You know, you don’t need to worry so much,” Jim said to them some hours later. “The captain has vouchsafed your safety, and none of the crewmembers are stupid enough to break them.”
“I’m not so sure,” Bryan said. “I saw a fly enter a sailor’s cauliflower ear earlier and I could swear it flew out the other side a few minutes later.”
Jim chuckled.
“There aren’t many scientists here, I admit,” he said. “But they’re not so bad once you get to know them. They’re simple men with little in the way of formal education, but you don’t need to be all that smart to know the rights and wrongs of the world.”
“And yet they were quite happy, ready to cut me open at a single word from your capta
in,” Bryan said.
“From your perspective it might seem that way,” Jim said. “From theirs, it looks a lot like loyalty.”
“No doubt that’s what it looked like to Hitler with his German officers too,” Bryan grumbled under his breath.
The family was grateful when the sun began to set, their duties finally coming to an end. They were ushered below deck to the common room. Their meal today, as it would be every day until the chef ran out of ingredients, was rat stew. The chef would then be forced to come up with another meal, something that didn’t require all the ingredients of the previous menu, and therefore less tasty as a result.
The family sat at their own table, aware of the other diners, who seemed to take a great deal of time over the last few bites of their meal, followed by a very close inspection of the broken prongs at the end of their forks, which unerringly pointed in the direction of the estranged family sitting in the corner of the room.
“What were you talking about before, about the Mary Celeste?” Aaron said to Zoe as he shoveled the tepid water into his mouth.
“The Mary Celeste was a ship discovered off the coast of the Azores in 1872,” Zoe said. “She was in good condition, but her crew was missing, disappeared. It’s said the last captain’s log was made ten days previous to her discovery, the meals cooked and undisturbed in the kitchen, the crew’s belongings still stored. No one knows what happened to her crew. They just disappeared.”
“You think they got sucked down a sinkhole?” Bryan said.
“It would explain a few things, don’t you think?” Zoe said.
“If that’s true, how did the Mary Celeste get down here?” Cassie said.
“Maybe she didn’t,” Zoe said. “But the crew rebuilt her and christened her down here.”
“Mystery solved,” Aaron said.
“A sinkhole at sea?” Cassie said. “Is that even possible? I thought sinkholes only happened on land.”
“They’re recesses in the land that give way,” Zoe said. “They can happen just about anywhere.”
“I wonder what a sinkhole at sea would look like,” Cassie said.
“I don’t know,” Zoe said. “Hopefully we’ll never have to see one.”
The family hastily finished their meals and staggered up the steps back to the main deck. They were so tired they could sleep just about anywhere. They were ushered to the captain’s cabin. Were they going to be treated to a nice place to sleep? It would have been a cherry on top of their catastrophe of a day.
The family didn’t trust the captain as far as they could throw him, but they did have respect for his young apprentice. He had rescued them on two separate occasions, each time without asking for anything in return. The family were discovering altruism was not a common element in this world, and should be seized upon whenever it reared its head above the parapets.
If these worlds, as Zoe referred to them, were any indication of humanity’s origins, they were all dog-eat-dog landscapes. It was easy to see the ovens where humanity’s less desirable aspects had been baked.
It was dark and musty in the captain’s room. It wasn’t altogether spacious and they had to get comfortable with one another if they were all to fit.
There were paintings on the walls, some of which Zoe recognized as missing works of the masters. They had probably gotten sucked down the sinkholes long ago. It belied a depth to the captain’s character that had heretofore not made itself apparent.
Zoe supposed the captain couldn’t be an altogether bad person if he had an interest in art. But then, she supposed many of the world’s tyrants had been into art too, and so it was not a reliable indicator of character.
The aroma of the food in the room heightened the family’s senses. The spread on the table was fit for a king, and Zoe supposed that on this ship, that was essentially what the captain was. What he said, went.
She had seen the kind of awful things the crew were willing to do for their captain, their king, and whether they enjoyed it or not was of no concern. The king commanded it, and they carried it out.
Schubert played from a small music box at the back of the room, and candles burned low with use at either end of the table. It was an opulence that did not exist on the rest on the ship. Zoe was certain it would not have been appreciated by the rest of the crew in any case.
The feast was cooked to perfection, and it was hard to believe the chefs in the food hall below were capable of producing such marvels. It went to show how skill depended largely on the materials one had to create them.
“Please sit,” Stoneheart said.
The family didn’t need to be told twice. They fell into their seats. They were hungry, despite their earlier meal. Even if they weren’t, they all knew the chances of being able to eat like this again might not come for some time.
“Uh uh,” Stoneheart said. “I said ‘sit’, not ‘eat’.”
It was a curious place to sit without eating, Bryan thought. He began to get a sense of the kind of toying Stoneheart appeared to enjoy.
“How was your first day aboard the Celeste?” Stoneheart said.
“Exhausting,” Bryan said.
“Good,” Stoneheart said. “We wouldn’t want you to get to your destination without learning the kind of hard work we undertake here.”
“I’ve decided we will take you to a port where you might be able to locate the information you desire,” Stoneheart said.
It was a huge relief, and it showed as the family’s shoulders relaxed. The tense atmosphere reduced by a shade or two.
“Thank you,” Bryan said. “And we promise to do the work you need of us, without complaint. I understand we need to pay for our passage. How long do you think it will take to get there?”
“A couple of days,” Stoneheart said.
“That long?” Bryan said, a little deflated.
“As fast as the wind blows,” Stoneheart said.
Bryan’s body ached at all the work he would have to do in those forty-eight hours. A map hung from a wall. It was colored in pastel shades: blues, greens and yellows. The towns were for the most part small and spaced far apart, with foreign Scandinavian-sounding names.
But the most curious thing about the map was it was not complete. It showed the right half of the world, but little of the left-hand side, as if no one had dared venture into it. But Bryan could see there was a large landmass behind that shroud of emptiness.
“You’re admiring my map?” Stoneheart said. “It’s as complete as anyone’s in the world.”
“Why is there a large blank space?” Bryan said.
“That’s British territory,” Stoneheart said. “No pirate has ventured into their lands and come back to tell of what they saw. The British hate us every bit as much as we hate them.”
“Where were we discovered?” Bryan said.
“The Devil Isles,” Stoneheart said.
He gestured with a fork that had skewered a thick slice of pork slathered with gravy.
“Right here,” he said.
The Demon Isles were center-north on the map, as far from the British lands as they were from the pirate lands. There was a picture of a monster. It had the torso of a man and legs of a giant squid. He held an item in either hand: an old style key in one, and a small chest in the other. Bryan recognized it as the same kind of emblem many maps from that time period had.
“There’s just a picture,” Bryan said. “Where are the islands?”
“The only blank spot on this side of the world,” Stoneheart said. “With the fog that sweeps in, bringing the monster, there isn’t a pirate alive who would willingly head into those waters. Many a ship has been lost in those waters.”
The horrific haunting sounds Bryan heard in the fog that night on the island came unbidden to his mind.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Stoneheart said.
“We heard them,” Bryan said. “The monsters. But we didn’t see them. It could have been anything.”
“No,” Stoneheart said
. “You know what you heard.”
Bryan’s mouth felt dry. It was entirely possible some forgotten creature from the ancient world had survived, sucked through a sinkhole into this world. This world's version of Loch Ness. Except this one is real.
“And where are we heading?” Bryan said.
“To New London,” Stoneheart said.
It was one of the few locations drawn on the British landmass. It was a large town that straddled an outcropping of land surrounded on three sides by the sea.
“The Passage is on the British side?” Bryan said.
“If it was on our side we would have found it already,” Stoneheart said.
“Do you think the British know its location?” Bryan said.
Stoneheart munched on a roast potato and shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows what they know,” Stoneheart said. “In the meantime, I would very much like to hear everything you can tell me about the surface.”
“What would you like to know?” Bryan said.
Stoneheart smiled like a small boy, rubbing his hands together. He leaned forward in his chair.
“Is it true about mermaids?” he said. “Do they sing beautiful songs and lure sailors out to sea and drag them below the surface?”
“Well, there are stories…” Bryan said, but he cut himself off when he saw the look on Jim’s face, the subtle shake of his head. Coupled with the look of disappointment growing on Stoneheart’s face, it was a clear message. “I mean, yes. Of course there are mermaids. Everything you say is true.”
Stoneheart grinned and banged the dining table with his fist.
“I knew it!” he said, turning to Jim. “What did I tell you?”
“You’ve never met anyone from the surface before?” Bryan said.
“No,” Stoneheart said. “Only imposters, sent by the British to assassinate me. But I saw through their lies. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s sniffing out lies. Now, tell me more about these mermaids.”
“Uh, well, they’re very pretty,” Bryan said.
“Pretty?” Stoneheart said, growing disappointed again.
“Beautiful,” Bryan said.
“More beautiful even than the rays of light from a setting sun,” Aaron said. “And the melancholy cries of a life wasted, a forlorn disparagement that comes from losing bit by bit their soul when they commit each murder.”