The Red Sea

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Did you mean what you said? About going with me to the islands?"

  "Yeah. Of course." He slumped forward, rubbing the corners of his eyes with the tips of his forefingers. "Has something happened with the stranger?"

  "I've decided to go. As soon as we can. I'll just have to make a few arrangements first."

  "Er, well. That probably won't be necessary."

  "Yes, why would we need to prepare? We're only traveling thousands of miles to a set of islands I'd never heard of until two days ago. I'm sure all we need to do is buy a few meat pies and bring an extra pair of socks."

  Blays looked sheepish. "I mean I've already spoken to Olivander and Nak. They're fine with you taking the time away from Narashtovik."

  "There will still be food. Travel. Logistics."

  "Yeah, Lolligan's helped me out with that. All good to go."

  Dante's jaw dropped. "You said it was my decision!"

  "And I haven't as much as spoken to you about it since then, have I? I simply wanted everything to be prepared so we could move as fast as possible."

  "You might have at least consulted me."

  "This is what I'm here for. To lend a hand. Make rough business a little more bearable." Blays rested against the headboard. "Besides, you were spending all day out climbing around mountains and tunnels. It got boring back here."

  Dante got up and moved to the window. It would be dawn soon and the fishermen were already paddling out to check their nets. He knew their lives weren't as simple and placid as it appeared, yet sometimes he envied them for knowing where each morning would take them.

  "Do you think I'm making the right choice?"

  Blays yawned loudly. "What time is it? Minus five in the morning? Right now, I wouldn't know whether it's the right choice to fry an egg or scramble it."

  Dante stared into the darkness a moment longer, then turned and kicked the bed. "Come on then. If you've already got everything prepared, there's no sense wasting time."

  "Next time, I'm going to rent us some of those horses that refuse to wake up until noon."

  Dante closed the door and jogged down the stairs. Blays may have wrangled the logistics, but there were two tasks left before they set out.

  Examine the woman who had brought him the news—and then bury her.

  3

  Blays stood in the ship's prow, hair tousled by the wind of the voyage. The sea was gray and the spray hissing over the railings was as cold as winter rain, but he was grinning like he'd just been promoted to Chief Ale-Quaffer.

  "Reminds you of the good old days, doesn't it?" he said over the smack of the waves and the creak of the boards.

  Dante tightened his grip on the rails. "Which days were those, exactly?"

  "Before all these dratted responsibilities. When all we had to do was roam. Us against the world."

  "You mean like when we were being hunted in the streets of Bressel. Or in Whetton, when they dragged you off to be hanged for murder. Those good old days?"

  "All right, maybe they weren't so good. Maybe they were just old." Blays wiped spray from his forehead. "Even so, they were fun, in their way."

  Dante grunted, turning to port to watch the city of Allingham fade into the mists of the horizon. It had been his first visit to the jewel of the Middle Kingdoms, but they'd hardly spent eight hours there before boarding the Thornwind and shoving off. They would sail south for a day, then turn east and pass through the Slanted Straits on their way to Bressel, capital of Mallon, to arrive in another three or four days. After the Thornwind made port, Dante hoped to hire Captain Collins to take them south to the Plagued Islands. Failing that, they'd look elsewhere. Bressel remained the largest port he'd ever seen, and after leaving a note of credit with Lolligan, Dante was practically carrying enough silver to buy his own vessel if he had to.

  There were many varieties of sea captain. Collins turned out to be of the highly unctuous variety, more of a hotelier than a naval commander. Or perhaps he only behaved that way when he had two lords paying lodging on a pair of cabins. Whatever the case, whenever he passed by, he asked Dante whether he could be of service.

  The fifth or sixth time the captain came by, he hardly slowed down. "In need of anything more, m'lord?"

  Dante stood from his bench, bracing himself on a nearby railing. "Yes, in fact. Passage to the Plagued Islands."

  Collins threw back his head and laughed. "Gladly! And while I'm at it, shall I deliver you to the back side of the moon?"

  "I'm afraid I'm serious. Can you help us?"

  The captain went dead sober. "The Plagued Islands are not on our schedule."

  "I'd be happy to pay you for the detour."

  "I will not sail into death for any fee."

  "Then do you know anyone greedy or stupid enough to do so in your stead?"

  "I will see if I can think up a few names," Collins said. "Though I think it would be best for you if my memory failed me."

  The man bobbed his head and strolled off. Dante watched him go. During the ride from Wending to Allingham, he'd spoken to Nak about the Plagued Islands, lacking any information about their destination except its name. However, as with all exotic, faraway locations, the stories and rumors were less than credible. It was possible that the people lived on the slopes of living volcanos—he'd seen much stranger arrangements, like the tree cities of Spiren—but Dante highly doubted the islands were actually so warm that you never needed clothes. Winter came everywhere.

  As for the meaning of the islands' name, he'd gotten nowhere. Some claimed that no one who ever visited them ever came back. This was nonsense on the face of it: if so, then no one would know anything about the place. Others claimed that it was so rife with poxes that the lucky ones left the islands with melted faces. This was surely exaggerated, but even if it held a kernel of truth, Dante was unconcerned. There were very few diseases he couldn't treat or cure outright. Besides, the autopsy he'd conducted on Riddi hadn't turned up any buboes, sores, cancers, or rots. If she'd carried any sicknesses from the islands, they were no more than a nuisance.

  From the way Captain Collins spoke, however, Dante was beginning to doubt his ability to heal would convince many sailors to take the risk of the voyage. Then again, all it took was one captain looking for a score.

  Early on the second day of their voyage, the Thornwind sailed directly toward a mountain. Dante watched in consternation as the peaks grew nearer and nearer. Just as he began to suspect Collins had gone mad, the ship hove to port, entering the strait that separated the mainland from a chain of rocky islands. Blays was back in the prow, gazing at the peaks in solitude.

  As Dante approached him, he understood where they were: the Carlon Islands. He turned to go.

  "Don't." Blays didn't remove his eyes from the mountains. "It's all right."

  Dante stayed where he was. "What is?"

  "I know why you did it. To save those who could be saved. It had to be done."

  For a moment, Dante was back in the courtyard of the Citadel, where he and Lira had been all that stood between their people and the conquering armies of the Gaskan Empire. It had smelled like guts and smoke; in their red uniforms, the enemy soldiers had looked like a rushing tide of blood. Lira was out in front, striking down the sorcerer who'd been about to kill Dante. In perverse payment for saving his life, Dante cracked apart the earth itself, dropping her—and the king's army—to their deaths.

  She had been from the Carlons. She had also been Blays' first love. After the Chainbreakers' War, it had taken three years before Dante saw Blays again, and even longer before their friendship resumed. Seven years after her death, Blays hadn't said anything about forgiving him. Nor had Dante expected it.

  "Maybe there was no other choice," Dante said. "Even so, I'm sorry."

  "Me too. But I imagine she was happy to die in such service. You know how she was."

  "When she fell, she actually smiled. Did I ever tell you that?"

  Blays chuckled, glancing his way. "Are you seriou
s? She was an odd one, wasn't she?"

  "I suppose that's why she fit right in."

  Other than the sighting of a lone pirate vessel, which the Thornwind outran handily, the rest of the trip was quiet. Soon, they came within sight of Bressel. It was the first major city Dante had spent time in, and remained the archetype he compared all others to. Shacks and slums on the outsides. Incomplete walls. Muddy streets, few of them cobbled, all of which stunk of dung. Church spires, including the Odeleon, said to be over five hundred feet high.

  And the docks. Larger than most cities, these encrusted the estuary where the Chanset River flowed out into the sea. The Thornwind maneuvered into the river and soon made berth.

  Collins strode up and down the deck, delivering orders loudly but calmly. Dante packed up the book he'd been reading and shouldered his bags. As he debarked, Collins pulled him aside.

  The bearded captain passed him a small square of paper. "I can't promise they're here. But if anyone is willing to help you, it will be these men."

  Dante blinked at the paper. It contained two whole names. "Thank you for going to such lengths."

  The man bowed, spreading one palm before him. Dante crossed the gangplank over the brackish-smelling waters. Blays followed behind him, smiling at the bustle of the longshoremen, sailors, fishermen, and vendors. There were even a few neeling within the crowds—short, pale, hairless creatures with a fishy cast to their faces. Dante hadn't seen one since leaving Bressel a decade earlier.

  "So," Blays said. "Pub?"

  "New ship first," Dante said. "Then pub."

  "Counterpoint: by pubbing first, we'll be more enthusiastic about finding a new ship. Not to mention more charming toward its quartermaster."

  "Our list is only two names long. The pubs will be our morale booster if those fall through."

  Blays narrowed his eyes, then nodded once. "Wise. Extremely wise. First name on the list?"

  This was one Captain Davids of the Lurcher. After asking around, and discovering his Mallish was still fine despite years of neglect, Dante was directed to a pier a short ways upstream. On finding the Lurcher, he was met by a quartermaster named Lorrie, a man whose ruddy face was wreathed in red whiskers.

  "We're looking for passage to the Plagued Islands," Dante said. "You came recommended by way of Captain Benn Collins."

  Lorrie gave him a long, level look. "We won't be headed that way. Perhaps if it were summer."

  "Summer's only a few weeks off," Dante said. "How long would we need to wait?"

  "I wasn't finished. Perhaps it if were summer. And the whirlpool were down. And my men were starving and in need of immediate coin. And if I was promised nine virgins of—"

  Blays exhaled loudly. "We get the point. You're not man enough to take us there."

  Lorrie smiled, red whiskers twitching. "If you're trying to goad me, you'll have to find far worse slander than that."

  "Your mother is a tramp?"

  Dante held out his scrap of paper. "We were told the Yasmina might make the trip. Do you know where it might be?"

  "Yes," Lorrie said. "In pieces at the bottom of the Red Sea, off the coast of your precious islands."

  "I see. So do you know anyone who would be willing to take us there?"

  "Well, under normal circumstances, and assuming there was a bit of silver coming my way for it, I'd send you to Captain Twill. Of the Sword of the South."

  "But what are the abnormal circumstances stopping you from doing so?"

  "Those being that, last I heard, Twill was about to die of illness."

  "Let me guess," Blays muttered. "Picked up on a trip to the Plagued Islands?"

  The man scratched his neck. "Can't say I got close enough to her to find out."

  "Is she here now?" Dante said.

  "Like I said: silver."

  Dante fished into a pouch and removed three Galladese coins, careful not to let the others clink.

  Lorrie hefted them in his palm, frowning deeply at them. "Where are these from?"

  "The color of money doesn't care whose face is stamped on it."

  "Agreed." He pocketed the coins and stood, rolling his neck with a series of cracks. "And for this much, I'll introduce you myself."

  The hefty man ambled down the dock and into the mucky thoroughfare fronting it. Boards were laid in the mud, but these trails were dominated by men bearing handcarts and wagons piled with crates and casks. After years spent among the Gaskans, who favored long coats and fur hats, the Mallish jackets looked flimsy, more decorative than functional.

  After a brief jaunt, Lorrie turned off the thoroughfare and onto a pier. So far, every dock had been jammed with merchant vessels, but this one berthed a single ship. If the wallowing carracks they'd seen previously had been broadswords, the Sword of the South was a rapier: sleek and slim, with a short foremast and a taller mainmast. Its decks were empty and it rode high in the water.

  Lorrie stopped before it and cupped his hand to his mouth. "Hoy!"

  After a moment of silence, he repeated himself, more loudly. A scuzzy-looking young man popped up from the deck.

  "Mr. Naran, if you please," Lorrie said.

  The young man eyed them, mouth half open, then disappeared once more. After a minute, another man appeared, brown-skinned and green-eyed, wearing an orange-trimmed white jacket, the sleeves of which appeared to be connected to its vest using laces.

  "Is that you, Lorrie?" He spoke with an upper-class Mallish accent, but this was accompanied by a second accent Dante had never heard before. "Looking to finally join a real crew?"

  Lorrie gawked. "You have a real crew on this ship? I'm sorry, there must be some mistake. Y'see, I was looking for the Sword of the South."

  Naran removed a pick from his breast pocket and scraped between his teeth, which were remarkably well-preserved for a sailor. "Mind getting to the point? Some of us have work to do."

  "This is Dante," Lorrie said. "And this is…" He gestured at Blays, then shrugged. "Someone who didn't pay me enough to remember their name." He flicked his hand in a salute and turned to go.

  "What, that's it?" Blays said.

  "I said I'd introduce you, not arrange you to be married." Lorrie strolled away in the direction of the Lurcher.

  Naran folded his hands behind his back and gazed at them from behind the railings. "Did you have something you wanted? Or did you just come here for a look at my handsome face?"

  "We heard Captain Twill is unwell," Dante said. "I'm a healer."

  The man's mouth tightened to a thin line. "Thank you. Not interested."

  "Mr. Lorrie made it sound as though your captain's condition is very serious."

  "And that is precisely why she is in no need of whatever toad ichor you've come to peddle."

  Dante raised his eyebrows. "You will want to let me see her."

  "And how do you expect to be compensated for your services?"

  "I need passage to the Plagued Islands. Therefore, my ability to reach my destination depends on my ability to heal your captain."

  Naran regarded him for a long moment, then sighed. "Permission to board."

  Dante bowed his head and climbed the portable staircase set beside the boat. As he crossed onto the deck, he caught a whiff of something floral and spicy. Naran was wearing some kind of perfume. Possibly that was the custom in his land, but Dante feared he might be using it to deal with the scent of death.

  The man led them to a cabin in the aftercastle. "Wait here."

  He opened the door, a bell jingling from the handle. The interior was too dark to make out. As he closed the door behind him, the room exhaled a whiff of something fetid.

  After two minutes of silence, Naran reopened the door and nodded them inside. The cabin was spacious, as far as ship's cabins went, meaning that it was merely cramped rather than claustrophobic. A bed took up the left wall. Within it, a woman lay propped up by pillows, her features barely visible in the thin sunlight sneaking past the curtained windows. Her blond hair was sun-bleached
to the point of whiteness, and though her youngish face was heavily tanned, this couldn't hide her drawn, wan skin.

  She might have been quite attractive if not for the oozing sores pocking her face. Despite these, she met Dante's gaze head on. Her eyes were a pale, washed-out blue common to the Collen Basin.

  "Mr. Naran tells me you consider yourself a healer."

  Dante shrugged. "I imagine the hundreds of people I've saved would agree."

  "I'm impressed," she said. "And of those hundreds, how many did you cure of the Weeping End?"

  "Never heard of it. Fortunately, a complete unfamiliarity with my enemies has never stopped me from defeating them." He moved nearer to the bed. The fetid smell intensified. Dante breathed through his mouth, doing his best not to display his distaste. "Where did you pick this up? The Plagued Islands?"

  "The Golden Isles. That's the only place the Weeping End is found."

  "Do you know what caused you to be afflicted with it?"

  "I thought you were supposed to be the physician."

  "Humor me. No pun intended."

  Twill continued to stare at him. "They say it comes from contact with the snorriba. A kind of snake favored here for its skin. This trip, we took some aboard. Rubbing your hands with tint leaves is supposed to ward off the sickness, but it didn't help me."

  Dante nodded vaguely. In Narashtovik, he'd established an institution known as the carneterium to study the causes of death, but the roots of sickness remained elusive. Some diseases seemed contagious, but others didn't appear capable of passing to others. Everywhere he traveled had competing theories as to how these illnesses came to be. Dirt and filth was a common one. In Mallon, where they believed in the purity of the ether, impurities were pegged as the cause. These could come in the form of rotten food, vices (particularly sex, or the consumption or smoking of various herbs), even blasphemous thoughts. Removing the impurities could be achieved through leeches, emetics, sweating, enemas, or anything else that expunged liquid from the body. No matter which land you went to, traveling physicians sold a panoply of oils, pastes, incenses, and ichors.