“Do you …” he dragged out the words, “have a … family?”
“No! Let go of me!” was Tom’s answer.
“You’ll work … for me,” said Silverstein. “It will keep … you out of prison.”
Not only did Isaiah Silverstein keep Tom out of prison, he kept the young thief far away from England entirely. The ship Tom worked on was called The Muscat Queen. The other ship, The Tigress, was the second of two that Isaiah commanded. He did not own the ships, but he took great pride in them. From Cape Town in South Africa to Gwadar, Isaiah and his crew swept the Indian Ocean like a broom, harassing Portuguese, Dutch and French ships, seizing goods and collecting wealth for the British Empire. During this time Tom imitated the ways of Isaiah Silverstein. During their raids and exploits in the eastern seas, Tom learned that some people were thieves by profession. They stole from whomever they were told, and they stole from the authorities who told them to steal. Their British government wanted to expand, and they wanted to eat and be rich, so working for the East India Company wasn’t so terrible a life.
There were times when they faced far more dangerous enemies than the French or Dutch. Monsters of the Indian Ocean were a great and ominous threat to the ships that sailed too far from the coastline of Africa and Arabia. About a year and six or seven months after Tom began working onboard The Muscat Queen, Isaiah Silverstein and his crew had just finished some recent business in Aden and were planning to sail nonstop to Gwadar. To avoid running into trouble along the way, Isaiah chose to sail farther out to sea than usual, thinking the wide open ocean would protect his ships during the journey. Protect them from other ships indeed it did, but the voyage would nearly cost them their lives. Tom remembered the encounter all too well.
Eight days from Aden The Muscat Queen and The Tigress had been making wonderful time, moving out into the deeper north Indian Ocean. During the middle of the day, Tom and the crew of The Muscat Queen were busy cleaning the main deck. On a day such as that one, which was hot and bright, cleaning the deck was an excuse for cooling off. For every bucket of water that was thrown across the deck, another was for dipping rags that the men wrapped around their heads to keep off the sun. Captain Silverstein was in his cabin and not terribly concerned about keeping the crew busy for the time being, and eventually the men slept or sat along the yardarms to rest where the breeze was best.
While everyone else was snoozing or hiding in the shade, Tom’s best friend, Morgan Shaw, came up on deck with a pair of blades and asked Tom if he wanted to practice while no one was in the way. Sparring with swords was the two boys’ favorite sport when they weren’t working. It had made them close companions over the time they had been aboard The Muscat Queen. Tom always won the matches. It frustrated Morgan, the younger of the two, because no matter what tricks he pulled, Tom always took advantage of his curse and was too fast and too strong for Morgan. Practicing with Tom made Morgan a better swordsman than nearly all the other men on board, which was something in which he took much pride, but Morgan wanted more to be able to beat Tom than anyone else. Usually they could get only a dozen minutes worth of swings before the captain would take their swords and send them off to work again, but on this day, with little to do under the midday sun, Tom and Morgan cut the air with their blades for nearly an hour before the heat wore them down and the bright sun made it difficult to watch what they were doing.
Exhausted from their marathon match, Tom and Morgan snuck into the galley, each taking some fruit from barrels that weren’t sealed up. Their habit of doing everything together, including stealing food for themselves, was probably why the rest of the crew called them the twins. Back on the main deck they sat in the shade and talked about the ship they would have one day. Their dream was to have their own ship, one better than either of Captain Silverstein’s. They would sail around the Caribbean or Africa or wherever they pleased and collect wealth and women. Neither of them wanted to be civilized or to work for someone else. Being mercenaries for the East India Company made them want nothing more than to be outlaws, with no one to tell them how to behave or what to do. That was the good life. Anyone who tried to stop them would be a dead man.
In the calm of the afternoon the sea became rough. The change wasn’t sudden, but Tom and Morgan noticed before anyone else. Wandering around the deck, their legs wobbled as the ship rolled up and back down on an occasional large wave. The sky was clear, and the breeze was not blowing hard enough to have caused the ship to rock as it did. The twins talked between themselves, trying to decide what was happening. Morgan suggested that a far away earthquake in India might be shaking up the ocean, which was something he’d seen before. Tom shrugged and argued that perhaps Captain Silverstein had secretly hidden something onboard that was moving around and rocking the ship.
“You mean like cattle?” asked Morgan.
“Nah, I mean like princesses,” said Tom. “He’s got a harem, and they’re gonna sink us trying to get away from him, wherever he’s got them locked up.” Tom kept a straight face until Morgan laughed, and the two held their sides imagining Captain Silverstein chasing a herd of beautiful women ’round and ’round in his cabin.
Another wave rolled the ship up to one side, and this time it threw Tom and Morgan to the deck, sending them rolling one over the other. By this time the rest of the crew was up and about, all squinting and sweeping the horizon and the skies for any sign of what was causing the water to be so upset. Captain Silverstein emerged from his cabin and strode across the deck to the bow, then turned his head to see The Tigress a short distance away, its crew also running about in confusion.
“Ho!” one of the lookouts perched high in the sails called out, pointing a finger off the stern of the ship. Something large had risen out of the water.
As if appearing from nowhere, a great mass, scaled and dark, had jutted up from the surface of the ocean and moved slowly past the ships in an enormous circle. Neither ship moved forward, both sluggishly turning around in circles the way they would if they had been anchored in place. Like a living island, the mass circled again and again before eventually sinking out of sight.
No one spoke. All waited for the captain’s orders. Clearly a monster was near, and if that weren’t startling enough, no one knew what it was. The Leviathan? A giant serpent? The Kraken? Every beast that came to mind was no less frightening than the last.
“Wave off the starboard hull!” the lookout shouted from up high. The crew watched as he tied himself tight to the mast and threw his arms around it to brace himself. The men on deck crouched low or clung to the railing as a powerful wave rushed toward The Muscat Queen. The dark, scaled body they had seen earlier was racing toward them, passing under the hull of the ship. It darkened the water all around the vessel. Tom guessed it must have been as wide as eight ships and longer than thirty. Morgan grabbed Tom’s arm and pulled him away from the railing to keep him from falling overboard while gawking at the size of the creature. On the port side of the ship, the monster’s head broke the surface of the water. Two nostrils on top of its smooth, blunt head roared and sprayed fountains of seawater high into the air like a pair of volcanoes. So large was its head that only one of its eyes could be seen, bigger around than four barrels and bright green with a gaping pupil that stared back at them as wide as could be. As the water it sprayed came raining down on their heads, the powerful tail of the giant fish rose up on the other side of the ship and sank quickly beneath it as the giant wave following it picked up the ship and rolled it dangerously fast and high away from The Tigress. Some of the men were lifted off their feet and hung in the air as the ship reached the top of the wave, falling back to the deck as it rolled down the other side.
“Secure your lifelines!” commanded the captain, ordering the men to tie themselves to sturdy posts and knobs along the base of the quarterdeck and around the masts. Tom and Morgan were among the first to comply, both knowing better than to dawdle like the few men who had died the year before during a monsoon.
Captain Silverstein watched in frustration as the Bahamut—the legendary giant fish of the Arabian and Indian seas—sank beneath the surface and swam beneath The Tigress, passing under it and blackening the water all around the vessel. Instead of rolling it along with a powerful wave as it had The Muscat Queen, the Bahamut rose to the surface, catching the bottom of the Tigress and picking it up on its back, carrying it through the air like a toy. The ship rolled to one side, and the crew held on for their lives as the Bahamut charged forward and the ship slid down its sloped back. The hull of The Tigress crashed into the water once again, throwing the crew around the deck. The impact broke a few of the yardarms, but the hull was not badly hurt.
“Thomas! Morgan! Fetch me the largest chest from my cabin!” Captain Silverstein called to the two boys. As they untied their lifelines, the captain took a ring of keys from his coat pocket and handed it to Morgan. “Bring it out here quickly,” he told them sternly.
Again the Bahamut vanished beneath the waves. As the crew swung their heads left and right, looking for the monster, the captain walked to the bow of the Muscat Queen and propped a hand on the hilt of the blade hanging from his belt. Silently, he waited, knowing what it would take to save his men and avoid a fight to the death. Isaiah Silverstein was both an educated and a shrewd man. Instead of challenging the Bahamut to battle, he would conduct business. Isaiah knew his waters and knew the myths surrounding them. Most of the men working for the East India Company ridiculed Isaiah for his superstitious concerns and laughed at his belief in barbarian legends. They thought of themselves as modern, rational men. The world is not to be feared, they declared. Isaiah knew better, and he knew that the Bahamut was not interested in sinking his ships. It demanded a tribute. It had given its only warning, and Isaiah was not going to wait for another.
“Bahamut! I know it is you!” he called out over the water. “I beg you to allow us to cross these waters! We have riches, which we offer in return for your mercy and protection!” By this time Morgan and Tom had come waddling out onto the main deck, a large chest full of gold between them, the sum of The Muscat Queen’s most recent successes. “Put it there,” the captain told them, pointing to the end of the bow. The two heaved the chest up to the end of the ship and set it down with a bang. Morgan handed the captain his keys, and the two hurried back to the lifelines.
Off the bow of the ship the ocean blackened, the darkness spreading outward from the point where it first appeared, widening until it was eight ships broad and thirty long. After growing to that size, the shadow pushed up the surface of the ocean, which bowed and erupted in white foam as the head of the Bahamut rose. The two tall nostrils on top of the fish’s head sprayed fountains of salt water and briny mist into the air and tilted back as its mouth opened. Seawater rushed forward over the bottom jaw of the titan and ran down its cavernous throat like a river flowing into an empty canyon. When it had completely opened up its toothless mouth, its top jaw cast a shadow across the entire ship from bow to stern. From inside the Bahamut a low drone rose and fell. It sounded like the yawn of a giant man.
“May this ensure our safe passage!” said Captain Silverstein, stepping forward and scooping the heavy chest of gold into his arms. With a grunt, he twisted back and slung the chest off the bow of the ship. Down it plummeted, landing square on the tongue of the great fish, bouncing and tumbling down into its dark throat. All eyes had watched as the Bahamut closed its jaws, its head sinking beneath the waves. The water churned and sputtered until at last the giant’s hippopotamus nostrils had given a final blast of mist and the dark shadow had disappeared.
This memory played out in front of Tom’s eyes as he held the helm and his ghostly ship cruised along over the sullen Chthonian Sea. He watched as images of a younger Tom and Morgan celebrated the departure of the Bahamut, cheering on their captain with the rest of the crew of The Muscat Queen. It had been an exciting day. Captain Silverstein had afterward sailed the ships to Gwadar, where he made more than enough money to make up for the riches he’d given up to save the lives of the crew. Everyone had received a generous amount of gold, and the crew never worried about eating again as long as they were on The Muscat Queen. Tom also remembered their fortune ran out less than a year later. The East India Company caught up with Isaiah Silverstein and arrested him for theft. Tom knew it was an excuse to seize all of the captain’s riches, even those that were rightfully his. After all, Isaiah’s duty was to be a bulldog, not to accrue wealth for the Empire. The Company probably didn’t realize how much wealth there was to be made on the ocean, they were so concerned about enforcing it on land. So Silverstein and men like him were rounded up for the last time, the last of the hired privateers, themselves robbed at the end.
When Isaiah Silverstein was no more, Tom and Morgan were left without a home or food to eat. They were taken to work again long before Silverstein made it back to London for his trials. Morgan was pressed into the crew of another East India Company trade ship, one whose captain was stringently loyal to the Crown. Tom, on the other hand, was picked up by a Sicilian man who later sold him to Marcos Lapuente, a collector of werewolves.
Before parting, Tom and Morgan had sworn that each would work his way back to England, never giving up on their shared dream. As unlikely as it was, they indeed met again in their late adolescence, and by their early twenties the two had developed the cunning and skill to quickly accrue an impressive wealth. Tom used his to buy Hutch’s Wharf in London, as well as his hideouts in London and Barcelona. Morgan, not quite Tom’s physical equal, was happy to follow his best friend through any fight, robbery or near-death escape. Keeping up with Thomas Crowe was not always enough, and Morgan’s mortality almost cost him his life as often as it cost him a greater share of treasure or the attention of several women, all of whom would inevitably fall for Thomas. This had become a thorn in the heart of Morgan Shaw, who looked to Tom as an older brother whom he would give anything to be like.
*
Lost in his memories for what felt like hundreds of years, Thomas Crowe opened his eyes when at last his ship met the shores at the far end of the Chthonian Sea. Dreaming of his past life, of people and places farther away than imaginable, he had forgotten where he was meaning to go. When his ghostly ship pushed its nose into sand and abruptly stopped, Tom lurched forward into the helm, grabbing hold of the knobs and falling to one knee. It was like waking up at the first light of dawn and not knowing where he had fallen asleep the night before. Letting go of the helm, Tom stepped down from the quarterdeck and crossed the main deck to the bow. Hanging on to a line on the fore stay sail, he looked out upon the land he’d struck. It was nothing like he’d expected. His ship had run aground on the shores of a great desert that ran to the horizon in all directions. The thread of his soul disappeared over the horizon directly ahead. The path was clear; the long journey was not over. Tom was not disappointed, for in fact he had not expected the voyage across the sea to be the last leg of his wanderings. Having nothing to pack or carry along with him except the Uyl Talisman on his arm and Yatagarasu at his hip, Tom rappelled down the side of his ship using the weak rope ladder and dropped off into the shallows. As he waded up the sloping shore and marched away from the ship, Yatagarasu gave a sudden cry. Tom looked down at the blade hanging from his belt and watched as it morphed into the form of the bird he had seen only once or twice before. Yata walked alongside him, turning its head left and right, bobbing its neck and taking steps like a cautious burglar.
“Hm?” Tom stared at Yata as it lowered its head and flapped its big wings, skipping forward and gradually lifting off the ground. As Tom walked, Yata circled overhead, crying and chattering to itself.
Tom had not immediately noticed that the dark flakes of night that had snowed from the sky were no longer falling, and this strange world had taken on the color of the old world he had known in life. Slowly he became aware of the colors—the deser
t sand, a bright tan; the sky, blue and hatched with thin white clouds that clumped together like stripes on a tiger.
A road appeared in the sand as Tom followed Yata’s lead. The ground underneath his feet became hard, and the crisp outline of white bricks showed through the desert soil. The road wound up and down the crests of dunes, crisscrossing the path of the soul thread as it meandered along through the great desert.
At last the road led Tom to a broad oasis. Green palms and grasses congregated around a blue pool of crystal water that shimmered in the bright daylight. The white stone road curved down a long dune ahead of him and then cut straight across the blue water and into the oasis, beyond which Tom could not see for the leaves of the palms. He walked along the road and into the oasis, pausing to look into the crystal water, where he saw his reflection looking back up at him. Out of curiosity, he crouched down and touched the water’s surface. When he drew his hand back, it was wet. Neither the water in the Chthonian Sea or the Grey Lake had gotten his legs wet when he had stepped in them. Tom could not decide if he were imagining things or if the water were real. Walking along the white stone road, he watched his reflection in the water beside him. He could swear he smelled the water, the trees and the dry desert air. His human senses had come back to him. He even felt the hot breeze that crossed the oasis and brushed his arms and face.
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