by Robert Bevan
Fortunately, enough of them had died or been wounded beyond the ability to work that the ones who were able to work had their hands too full tending to the shorthanded ship to start up any conspiracies. But in case any of them decided to get chatty, Katherine sent Randy to mingle among them. Ostensibly, his assignment was to give a helping hand where it was needed, but she actually wanted a set of ears that were loyal to her floating around to stop that sort of talk before it started. She just needed to stay in control for however long it took to get to whatever mystery island Captain Longfellow insisted they visit before heading to Bharan.
“Do you know where we are headed?” asked one of the new crewmen. It was the big bald black guy, one of the three who were sizing each other up for the position Katherine had pulled right out from under all of them.
Katherine glanced down to make sure Butterbean was still standing next to her, then told herself it's not because this guy is black.
She shook her head. “We're just following the other ship.”
“Pardon me, Captain.” There was a hint of contempt in his voice. “I do not ask because I do not know where we are headed. I ask because I do know where we are headed, and I thought you should know as well.”
That sounded reasonable, if not a little foreboding. It couldn't hurt to start learning her way around. “Spill your guts, then. Where are we headed?”
He lifted his massive dark-brown arm, covered from shoulder to wrist in even darker tattoos, and pointed out past the ship's bow. “Do you see how the horizon is blurred over there?”
Katherine peered in the direction he was pointing. There did appear to be some kind of dark grey fog obscuring the line between the greenish-blue water and the cloudless sky, but it didn't seem alarmingly unusual to her.
“Yeah, I see it. What about it?”
“Those are the Shoals of Mist.” He was looking at her like she should be impressed by that.
“Awesome.”
The big man frowned. “The Shoals of Mist must be avoided at all costs. And yet we sail straight for them.”
“Why?” asked Katherine. “What's so bad about them? Are there cannibals?”
“There may be once the shoals tear open our hulls. We'll have no food, no means of escape, and no hope of getting rescued. When the food stores have been consumed, and then the animals,” he glanced down at Butterbean, then raised his eyes back to Katherine. “with what else will we nourish ourselves but one another?”
Katherine couldn't help but feel some subtext in his words and the way he spoke them. I'm almost looking forward to the shipwreck which will lead to all our deaths, because at least I'll get to eat the bitch who stole my boat before I die.
“Thank you for the information.” Katherine pretended to not notice any subtext. If he wanted to threaten her, then he could grow a sack and say what he had to say. Captain Longfellow had warned her that some of the crew might be apprehensive about where they were going, and that she should reassure them that they'd all be fine as long as they followed close behind the Maiden's Voyage. “If you do as you're told, we'll nourish ourselves just fine.” She spoke loudly enough for other crew members to hear as well, both to reassure them and so that they might witness their new captain handling her shit when it came to implied insubordination. “Stay on their tail. Do you understand?”
The crewman narrowed his eyes, looking left and right to see who else may have overheard.
Katherine kept her eyes squarely focused on him.
Finally, he gave her a slight bow. “Very good, Captain.”
She wasn't smug about her little victory. Now that she had made her point, she wanted him to know that while she may not be heeding this particular warning, she valued his insight.
“What's your name?”
“I am Attal.”
“Thank you, Attal. This boat is smaller than the Maiden's Voyage. Anything that they can pass through should prove no problem for us. But maybe keep an anchor ready to drop so we don't ram them if they should happen to hit a snag.”
Attal nodded. “Very good, Captain.” That time, although she was listening for it, Katherine didn't pick up any contempt in his voice.
It wasn't like she had any great reason to have unwavering faith in Captain Longfellow. He was good for a laugh and a drink before turning in for the night, but he was no bumbling dandy like Captain Martinoli. Captain Longfellow clearly enjoyed the respect and admiration of his men, and he had perhaps more reason than any of Nightwind's crewmen to think Katherine had swiped his rightfully captured ship out from under his nose. Had she accidentally insulted him in front of his whole crew? The more she thought about it now, she reasoned that he could be leading her into a trap.
On the other hand, Captain Longfellow seemed like a straightforward sort, and more likely to call someone out to their face than to lead them into some kind of spooky mist trap. Judging from the little time she'd spent in his company, that didn't seem like his style.
Katherine asked Attal to instruct the guys working the sails to stay far enough behind the Maiden's Voyage so that they would have time to drop anchor if the need arose. As slow as it was traveling once they entered the mist, that precaution still had them practically right on top of each other. That was just as well, because Captain Longfellow had some things to shout at them.
“Stay close enough to see us!” he bellowed to them through the fog. “Keep ready at the rudder and follow us exactly!”
Attal delegated responsibilities to the crewmen that Katherine felt bad for not understanding. She hadn't earned this position any more than Captain Martinoli had. They'd acquired it through two different means of fraud.
On the other hand, Katherine didn't really give a shit about being a ship's captain. This was simply a means to get her to that ice woman's island, grab the magic gem of whatever, and get back to the mainland so she could get Tim resurrected. When all that was done, she might thank one of the men who had gone above and beyond the call of duty by handing over the reins and naming him captain.
The fog got so thick that the Maiden's Voyage was completely obscured. They wouldn't have been able to continue following if not for a brightly lit lantern hanging from a hooked pole off the back deck.
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” said Attal about an hour into their excruciatingly slow journey of seemingly random sharp turns.
“Why?” asked Katherine. “Are we almost there?”
“I know not where there is. To the best of my knowledge, no ship has ever sailed this far into the Shoals of Mist. It is known only as a place for ships to die and sailors to go mad... and then also eventually die.”
As more hours passed, Katherine's eyes and mind grew weary from the strain of trying to keep up with that lantern. Every time a particularly dense puff of fog blew by, completely obscuring it for a second, she worried that they might fall far enough behind that they wouldn't be able to see it again. She realized that she was putting blind faith in Captain Longfellow after all. He could cripple them any time he wanted simply by extinguishing the light in that lamp, leaving them stranded and helpless.
Even as they followed the Maiden's Voyage to the best of their ability, she still felt scrapes and bumps as Nightwind's hull connected with underwater obstacles, hard enough to feel, but not quite hard enough to break through. But perhaps even more worrying were the non-stationary things that occasionally scraped against or bumped into Nightwind's hull.
Finally, the path straightened out and the bumps and scrapes became less frequent.
“Lower your anchor!” Captain Longfellow called through the fog.
“Shit!” said Katherine as the back of the Maiden's Voyage became visible again. “Boat! Ahoy! Steer!” She sighed with relief when Nightwind veered left just in time to avoid a collision, then felt embarrassed about the orders she'd shouted.
When the two ships were anchored alongside one another, Captain Longfellow instructed Katherine to count up the number of Nightwind's crewmen who were missing l
imbs, then choose three men to accompany her to the island.
Randy was an easy enough choice. She also picked Denise, just so she could keep an eye on her and keep her from causing any trouble on the boat in Katherine's absence. She considered that Attal was the strongest contender to lead a possible mutiny, and that it would be good to keep him away from the crew, but where would they go? Whatever means Captain Longfellow had at his disposal to navigate his way through the Shoals of Mist, he was keeping that knowledge to himself. In the end, she chose Attal as the final member of Nightwind's envoy because he was the only one of them who she knew by name, and because she liked to think he was starting to warm up to her.
Once Attal had counted up the ship's maimed, Katherine, Butterbean, and the rest of her landing party climbed into Nightwind's single rowboat, and the crew lowered hem into the fog-obscured water.
“It's not far now,” said Captain Longfellow as he and his landing party were lowered into the water. “Just follow the sound of me voice.”
Randy and Attal took oar duty, quickly finding their rhythm and following the sound of Captain Longfellow belting out some song it sounded like he was making up on the spot about pirates, dicks, buttsex, and semen. If there was any subtextual meaning, it was lost on Katherine.
Fortunately, Captain Longfellow wasn't wrong about almost being there. He'd only finished the third stanza of his song, which involved shoving things aside from his penis into other men's buttholes, when the fronts of their rowboats crunched against sand.
Captain Longfellow stopped singing. “How feels the land beneath yer feet, Captain?”
Unable to see him, Katherine could only assume that he was talking to her. She stepped out of the rowboat in order to be able to give a more honest reply. She had to admit, it felt good. After a few days at sea, there was something nice about standing on something that wasn't swaying.
“Wow. I don't remember it feeling so... solid.”
“Ha!” barked Captain Longfellow. “Some captain you be!”
“Where are we?” asked Attal. “What island is this?”
Captain Longfellow pulled the stopper out from a bottle of something and took a long greedy swig, then belched. “Be damned if I know what it's called. 'Tis home to the strangest manner of folk ye ever set eyes on.”
“Cannibals?” asked Katherine.
“By the gods, I hope not. There's not that many of them to begin with.”
Something that sounded like a heavy wooden crate thunked down in the sand not far from Katherine.
“What's that?” asked Katherine.
“A gift for the natives,” said Captain Longfellow. “Everyone grab a handle.”
Katherine knelt next to the box and felt around until she found a metallic handle on the side. Everyone lifted at once, and she suddenly felt like a pallbearer.
“Is it a dead body?”
“It is not, in fact,” said Captain Longfellow, his tone suggesting that he was a little put off by having to answer that question.
“You have a strange fixation with cannibalism,” Attal observed. “Did someone try to eat you when you were a child?”
Katherine rolled her eyes, well aware that no one could see her. “No. It's just that... nevermind.”
They walked for hours, nearly blind in the thick fog. Katherine could barely make out the people around her. The casket-like box they were all carrying was the only thing that kept them from wandering away from each other and getting lost. The gods only knew how Captain Longfellow was navigating.
A couple of hours later, Katherine's legs ached something fierce. She had hoped at the beginning of the trek that they were climbing to the top of a small hill and would soon enjoy a leisurely stroll down the other side, but it gradually became evident that the whole trip was going to be uphill. They were climbing a mountain.
They took a couple of breaks to rest their legs and sip a drink, but nobody was too keen to hang around long. The novelty of the fog had worn off pretty quickly, and being blind sucked.
Finally, when blindness started to seem preferable to the burn in her thigh muscles, the fog started to thin out. Katherine could see the people around her more clearly. She could see Butterbean, and even make out the shapes of scrawny leafless trees on either side of the path. Hell, she could even see the path now. It wasn't much of a sight, just hard packed dirt with the occasional fog-choked weed struggling to survive, but it was still nice to be able to see.
A few minutes later, her vision was completely restored. She hadn't realized just how blind she'd been until now that she could tell it was night. It made sense, considering how long they'd been walking, but it was kind of amazing that the fog was dense enough to block out her ability to tell day from night. A big fat full moon illuminated the swirling blanket of fog that covered everything for miles around.
“It's like we're on top of a cloud.”
Captain Longfellow stopped the procession and motioned for them to set down the crate. He smiled at her. “Take a look behind ye.”
Katherine turned around. “Holy shit!”
A massive stone head was carved into the side of the mountain, some combination of man and cat, vomiting out fog from its wide open mouth.
“The fuck is that?” asked Denise.
Captain Longfellow's crewmen smiled knowingly, no doubt remembering the first time they saw this.
The captain himself simply shrugged. “Be damned if I know. I've not dared try to venture inside. It be the source of the fog which keeps this place cut off from the rest of the world.” He winked. “Except, of course, for those who know how to find it.”
“How did you acquire this knowledge?” asked Attal.
“By keeping me mouth closed and me ears open.”
Attal nodded, understanding and accepting that Captain Longfellow wasn't going to give up his secrets. “The Sombali people. Are they real?”
Captain Longfellow grinned wide, showing off his impressive collection of precious metal teeth. “See for yerself.” He turned to face forward and howled out some call that sounded like a wolf in heat.
Katherine and Butterbean exchanged a glance.
After a moment of silent anticipation, something rustled in the bushes ahead. A tiny hairy man, naked but for a thick coating of dry orange mud, emerged onto the path. He wasn't like Tim. He was the other kind of midget in the game, like Frank. A gnome.
“Wongfallow!” the gnome exclaimed happily, his arms wide open in a friendly greeting.
“Wongfallow! Wongfallow!” other gnomes called out from the wilderness, then ran out onto the path. Men, women, and children, all covered in cracked dry mud, and not a one of them wearing a strip of clothing. The children reminded Katherine of Cabbage Patch Kids, but somehow managed to be both even uglier and more adorable.
Captain Longfellow spread his arms out wide, mimicking the gesture all the gnomes were making. His crewmen quickly followed his example. After a brief exchange of glances, Katherine, Randy, Denise, and Attal did likewise.
A few of the gnomes took a tentative step toward them, but stopped when Butterbean growled.
“Stay calm, Butterbean,” said Katherine. “They're friendly.” She raised a brow at Captain Longfellow. “They are friendly, right?”
“Ha!” said Captain Longfellow. “Ye don't yet know the meaning of the word.”
Katherine wasn't sure what he meant by that, but he didn't seem afraid, so she assumed they must be friendly.
Captain Longfellow turned to address the gnomes. “Olla!”
Wide grins spread across all their faces. “Olla!” They swarmed the visitors, placing their hands all over the visitors' bodies. While it certainly wouldn't fly back home, and would likely be deemed inappropriate in most parts of this world as well, to the best of Katherine's knowledge, it didn't have a sexual vibe to it. It was more like they were just curious, appreciating the texture of these giant strangers' exotic clothes.
“The fuck is going on here?” asked Denise.
Denise scoffed. “I'd think this was like heaven for you. Buncha kids grabbin' at your pecker. It's probably hard as a rock right now.”
“That ain't a nice thing to say.” Randy scowled at Denise. “I told you I ain't like that.”
Katherine couldn't help but glance down at Randy's crotch. There was no noticeable bulge.
They chattered excitedly in some gibberish language that Katherine didn't understand. But after listening for a moment, it wasn't complete gibberish. She could actually pick out a few words.
Are they speaking... Spanish?
Katherine remembered the greeting Captain Longfellow and the gnomes had shouted at one another. They weren't saying Olla! Well, Captain Longfellow might have been. It was clear that he didn't understand their language and had simply learned to mimic one sound that got them all riled up. But the gnomes were saying Hola!
She leaned toward Randy and Denise. “Do either of you speak Spanish?”
Denise glared up at her. “Do I look like a fuckin' beaner to you?”
“No. You look like a fucking asshole. Randy?”
Randy shook his head. “Just a few words from high school.”
Katherine tried to call back her own memories of high school Spanish. She cleared her throat. “Yo tengo...” She strained her brain, trying to think of a noun, any noun. “papas fritas?”
The gnomes stared up at her in silent awe, as did Captain Longfellow and his crewmen.
“Papas fritas!” cried one of the gnomes. Then they all crowded in on her, excitedly talking a mile a minute, but the only words Katherine could understand were papas fritas.
“You can speak their language?” asked Captain Longfellow.
Katherine shrugged. “Not really. I just said pretty much all I know.”
“What did ye say to them?”
“I told them I have French fries.”