“Of course they’re pirates,” Banner snapped.
Cassidy brought up the rear as they made their way over the thin bridge. He couldn’t feel any wind as if the plank had invisible walls keeping the gusts at bay. They crossed as easily as they would have on the ground.
Sailors stood out on the decks wearing the uniforms of a 17th century European navy, but time had aged them into looking more like the tattered garments of military vagrants. Banner and his men filed onto the half deck and inspected the crew. A man stood in the centre. His white hair flowed down his shoulders and over the grey naval uniform. His yellow eyes twitched between the members of the Nubigena’s crew, like a feral animal taking in its surroundings. A scar ran from his forehead to his ear as if he’d narrowly missed a lunging strike in a sword duel. Beside him stood a shorter man in similar uniform. Probably his first mate.
Banner gave a crisp salute. “Captain Falkenberg,” he said in a military tone, “permission to come aboard.”
The grey captain remained silent for long seconds as he continued studying the men before giving a grim nod. “Where’s your crew?” Captain Falkenberg asked. His voice came out tired and gravelly. “You had at least twenty last we met.”
Banner glanced back at his men and returned his attention to the captain. “I see the ship still sails.”
Cassidy tightened his grip on his belt, wishing he could wrap his fist around the Mauser. All eyes fixed on the two captains, as they regarded each other across the deck. Captain Falkenberg gave a slow nod. “You still flying that bloated contraption?”
Banner nodded. “Nothing ever catches her.”
Falkenberg put up his hand and brought it down in a waving gesture.
“At ease,” the man beside him shouted. The ship came to life as the lines of sailors broke formation and returned to their stations around the ship. They spoke a language Cassidy didn’t know, though it sounded close to German.
“Parley,” Falkenberg said.
Banner nodded his approval. He turned back to his men. “Cassidy. Ned.” He motioned them to follow, leaving Brewster and Franz to watch the gang plank to the Nubigena.
The captain led them to his cabin beneath the quarter deck. Cassidy couldn’t help involuntarily brushing the Mauser’s grip with his arm as they passed the gaunt sailors. The second mate pushed the door open.
Falkenberg sat down at the end of his private galley table and regarded them with his yellow stare. He motioned for them to sit. They did, but in a formation so that no one stood behind them, and Cassidy noticed Banner positioned himself in view of both the captain and the door.
“I’d been hoping we’d cross paths,” Falkenberg said. He continued glancing between Cassidy and Ned as if daring them to make some kind of move.
Banner sat back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “No wine?”
The captain grunted and a sailor brought them each a goblet of foul grog.
Banner eyed the murky liquid. “You used to serve wine.”
Falkenberg growled. “You used to have manners.” He rapped his pale knuckles on the table and motioned to Cassidy and Franz. “They know?”
Banner shrugged. “Know what, Captain?”
Falkenberg bit his lip. His breathing got heavier. “Your captain used to serve under me.”
“First mate,” Banner said.
“First mate,” the captain added. “Sailed with us for several years before running off to fly in airships.”
Banner sighed. He leaned towards Falkenberg and rested his elbows on the table top. “You said parley, Captain. What about?”
The captain contemplated silence for almost half a minute. “A favour.”
“We’ve delivered your letters before, brought you supplies,” Banner said with a shrug. “I’ve never minded doing that.”
Falkenberg shook his head. “Bigger favour.” He folded his hands and leaned closer so his and Banner’s heads were only inches apart. “The boys prefer the air in the real world, but I get tired of being trapped on the sea, so I’ve been dipping into the Twilight more than I used to.
“A few months ago we ventured in farther than before. Our ship was intercepted by some kind of airship, like yours, but more like a big balloon.” The captain made shapes in the air as if trying to outline the craft, but gave up. “Anyway, this ship wanted to trade. We had nothing they wanted, and I don’t suppose we could have used anything they carried, but we did exchange stories.” He glanced over at Cassidy and Ned. “I guess your captain here hasn’t told you, but I’m a cursed man.”
Cassidy squinted.
“The good captain here lost a few games with the devil,” Banner said, cutting in. “He’s not the best poker player.”
Captain Falkenberg brought his fist down on the table. “It wasn’t a game. That demon tricked me into—” He cut himself off. “My men and I are cursed. We’ll be sailing about till Judgment Day and there’s nothing to break us loose.”
Cassidy glanced at Franz and over at Banner to see if they actually believed the story. Their expressions looked neutral. “The captain on the ship,” Falkenberg continued, “told me about something called Celestial Pardons.” He held up a hand before anyone could speak. “I know you modern folk put little faith in the Almighty, but whatever these scrolls actually are, they can let us die, and we can move up to the Heavenly Realms.”
Banner shrugged. “I’m happy to hear it.”
“There’s one in the Everdream,” Falkenberg said.
Banner began to rise. The captain placed a pleading grip on his sleeve. “It’s on the edge, Banner. The Armada hardly patrols it. You could get it in a few minutes. There wouldn’t be any risk. I’d go there myself, but the ship can’t get that far into the Twilight. You fly into the Everdream all the time.”
“Only for men,” Banner said. “Never for anything else.”
“You owe me mercy,” Falkenberg said.
Banner shook his head.
“You owe.”
Banner’s face tightened. “I served you.”
“For a few years,” the captain said, his voice rising to a shout. “My men have sailed endlessly for over two hundred.” He grabbed Banner by the shirt and pulled him close.
Before Banner had even reached the captain’s face, Cassidy had the muzzle of his pistol at Falkenberg’s temple, but Banner waved Cassidy back.
“You owe me,” the captain shouted. His teeth showed full and bright. “Who found you in the sea floating on a wooden plank, about to fade out of existence as the storms moved on? Who pulled you up out of the brack? You would have been the ghost of a memory if it hadn’t been for the energies in this ship, Captain. You’re alive because of me.” Falkenberg remembered himself and released his grip. “Just do this one thing.”
Banner looked visibly shaken. He eyed Cassidy and shifted his gaze to Brewster and Franz. “I’ll have to talk to my men. They have a say.”
Falkenberg opened his mouth, but closed it again. He gave a heavy sigh and retreated back in his chair.
Cassidy remained standing. He holstered his weapon. Was Banner serious? Franz didn’t speak, but kept his steely gaze level on the grey captain.
“We’ll talk it over,” Banner said and moved towards the door.
The first mate handed Banner an envelope, which Banner stuffed into his jacket. Falkenberg ran a hand through his mane of grey hair. “When can I know?”
Banner stopped. He didn’t turn around. “You’ll know if I bring you a scroll.”
Chapter 10
“Is it really all that dangerous?” Cassidy asked. He and Ned stood around the billiard table in the recreation room. Ned and Cassidy played well, but Brewster’s memory lacked the ability tell the red from the white balls, causing nothing but confusion every time the Englishman played. Instead, he sat watching, sipping gingerly at a cup of jasmine tea.
“You can’t even imagine,” Brewster said. He placed the cup on the saucer balanced on his right knee. “Banner picks
us up in random dreams people are having. I’ve never quite figured out how he knows where to look, but the point is we can only fly in and out without being detected because people in the real world sleep and wake up by the millions. Moment the bubble breaks, they know we’re there.”
Ned tapped the cue ball. It struck a red one and bounced it off three sides before it came to rest beside the other red ball. No one knew the precise name of this billiard game, but it mattered little because no one could remember how to win either. “But, Falkenberg says it isn’t in someone’s dream.”
Brewster took another sip of tea, his forehead furrowed into deep waves. “That’s the problem. It’s in a weird little offshoot of the Everdream proper. Imagine the whole thing as a big mass of…” he looked at his cup as if searching the bottom for a good description, “stuff,” he finally settled on. “It’s a big ball off which people’s dreams sort of sprout as they fall asleep. Dreams aren’t made of nothing. They blister off the main mass each time a person starts dreaming, and are reabsorbed when they wake.” He made a fist and cupped his other hand around it. “So, you’ve got an outer membrane and then an inner barrier around the Everdream itself. Dream bubbles grow between the two,” he said around the pipe somehow still clenched in his teeth. “The peninsula extends into the bubble section and almost touches the outer membrane.”
Cassidy cued up and tapped the white ball. It knocked Ned's red ball off two walls and put it in one of the pockets. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“Billiards,” Ned said, as if that meant he’d won. “Another game?”
Cassidy set the stick aside and picked up his whisky on the rocks. “I mean, this Scroll is on the edge where it’s not heavily patrolled?”
Brewster snorted. “Breathe on any inch of the Everdream and they’ll have ships there faster than you can inhale again. It’s like a giant bug landing on your bare skin. That Falkenberg imbecile has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Cassidy took a seat across from Brewster and stirred the whisky with his finger. “Will the captain really do this?”
Ned shook his head. “That crazy pirate must have something big on him,” he said, setting his own stick aside.
“That crazy pirate is The Flying Dutchman,” Brewster said. He finished off his tea with one final gulp. “Their history goes back further than me. Further than Karl.”
“Did he really save Banner’s life?” Cassidy asked.
Brewster shrugged. “Bloody hell if I know.”
Franz opened the door. The young German looked flushed. He wrung his hands as if trying to wipe something off his skin.
“What is it?” Brewster asked, getting up. His saucer crashed to the floor. Ned and Cassidy stood, too, and gathered around the nervous German.
“He’s going to do it. He’s all happy and confident about the plan. You know how he gets. Says we can be in and out in a matter of minutes, the Armada be damned.”
“You’re serious?” Brewster said. His thick moustache flared.
“Ya,” said Franz. “But he says he’ll put anyone off in the Twilight that doesn’t want to come and he’ll nab them on the way out. Says we’ll stir up the Armada like wasps, and we’ll have to stay in the real world for a few months, but it can be done.”
“Is this Dutchman really worth that kind of risk?” Brewster shouted.
“Says it’ll be a hoot, whatever that means,” said Franz. “Says, it’ll be a good exercise.”
Brewster’s body went rigid and he sat down. “Man’s gone mad,” he muttered. “Stark, raving mad.”
***
“So, what’s your story?” Cassidy asked, trying to break Brewster from his distant reverie. The Englishman sat stirring milk into his tea. Tea he’d been stirring for ten minutes.
The older man sighed, took a long sip and sat down. “Not much to tell, quite frankly.” He pulled out a bulldog briar pipe and an English blend of tobacco Franz had grabbed for him on their trip to the Big Apple. “First thing I remember is being shot down in the biggest aerial battle I’ve ever seen. Fifty fighters, at least; Jerrys, Frenchies, our own boys. Perhaps a Yank or two flying RAF planes.”
Cassidy observed how meticulously Brewster packed his pipe; stuffing the bottom of the bowl loose and increasing the tamp as he made his way to the rim. “I mostly remember the nose dive,” the Englishman continued, “and trying to push away from the Sop before I went for the silk.” Brewster lit the bowl with a match, moving the flame in a circle to make the tobacco burn evenly. “I floated down as guns tore the sky to ribbons and smoking fighters made their way to the grave.”
Brewster gave the pipe small quick puffs until the tobacco glowed red. He wasn’t looking at Cassidy anymore. Wasn’t talking to him, but staring instead at a spot somewhere beyond. “It’s strange. That’s still the most vivid thing I remember. Remember it better than I recall yesterday, but it took me months to pick it out of my head.” He paused, then woke from his reverie again and coughed out a thin cloud of smoke. “Anyway, I landed safe enough. No one else had, and war was still raging up in the sky. And this ship came out of nowhere. Broke out of the clouds and picked me up. I’m sure it’s a lot like your story,” he said, and clicked the stem against his teeth.
“How about your dreamer?” Cassidy asked, interweaved his fingers and leaned forward. “Do you think you’ll ever meet him?”
Brewster shook his head. “Never met anyone who’s met their dreamer. The dream just fades and poof, that’s it. You’re in or out.”
Cassidy leaned back. He had hoped his friend would remember things better. “I still don’t understand how Banner finds us.”
The Englishman laughed. “Queue up at the ever growing club, Old Boy. From what I understand, it took a lot of trial and error. He’s better at finding those of us that are well-formed, so to speak. See, it all depends on how vivid we are in the dreamer’s mind. Some poor boys he picked up were no better than walking lumps of clay. They barely held themselves together long enough to get out of their own dream, and then melted to puddles of grey on the deck.” Brewster shook his head. “Saw one once. Lived only few hours. Not a pretty sight. Bled into the deck and faded away. Seems once you lose your mind...or consciousness perhaps, you’re a goner.”
“I’m worried about this mission,” Cassidy said, trying to nudge Brewster out of memories that obviously pained him.
The Englishman fidgeted with his pipe. Took a puff or two. “This Dutchman fellow’s not the sort Banner would usually take up with.”
Cassidy shrugged. “Says he saved his life.”
“That’s what worries me. I never knew anyone to save the captain’s life. He’s not the kind to owe a man something.”
“I take it he’s never told you how he got his start?”
“Not really,” Brewster said. “We’ve all heard how a god of a man dreamed him, and dreamed him so strong that Captain Banner sailed out of the dream and into the Twilight on a galleon he wrestled from a fellow dream. That’s why everyone stays no matter how crazy he gets. They believe in him.” He shrugged. “Me too, I guess.”
Cassidy tried to read Brewster’s expression, but couldn’t penetrate the British facade. “Do you actually believe all that? I mean, the god of a man dreaming him and all?”
Brewster gestured with his pipe. “Who knows? Captain doesn’t tell the story himself, you see. Others tell it. He’s always mum about his past.”
Cassidy tried to imagine what Banner had looked like back then. How long ago that must have been. A hundred years? Two hundred? “I want to meet my dreamer,” he said. A lump swelled in Cassidy’s throat as he said it. Didn’t know why he’d said it, but the words just slipped out. “I need to know who made me.”
Brewster gave a knowing nod, but looked sad as the tobacco went out in his pipe. “Don’t know if that’s for us to know, Old Boy.”
They were silent as they stared out at the ever twilight sky.
***
Banner’s eyes twinkled as
he glanced at his crew across the map table in the battle room, which was really the galley covered in what looked like half-finished maps. “I’ve been over it a thousand times in the last few days,” he said, “and it can be done. Done without losing a man.” He cracked a long wooden pointer down against the centre map, a cloudy mass which Cassidy took to be the Everdream.
The crew exchanged glances as Banner smiled.
“Cassidy’s our man!” Banner said.
Cassidy snapped his focus back to the captain.
“Don’t look so frightened, Major,” Banner said, pointing the wooden stick at Cassidy’s chest. Calling him by rank only occurred when the captain was trying to be military-like. “You’re the best damned pilot I’ve ever seen, and this’ll be a walk in the park for you.” He circled an area on the map that looked like an outcropping of black clouds.
“According to Falkenberg’s notes, the Scroll’s in a church right here on the border,” Banner continued. “Apparently, it’s an old church on an island that drifted out of the bulb and into the main territory of the Everdream before the dreamer woke, and it’s been permanent there ever since. Armada’s got no use for it, so they leave it empty. Nothing else around for miles.”
“They’ll still know the moment we cross the border,” said Franz, glancing over at Cassidy with obvious concern. “He’ll be caught in an instant.”
Banner grinned. His smiled widened as if this was the question he’d been waiting to address. “If we flew the Nubigena in, yes. But that’s not our plan. See, what they actually detect so damned fast isn’t dreams. Hell, they’re dreams themselves, right? It’s the real stuff that tweaks their antennae. This ship lights up like a Roman candle, especially with the engines turning.”
He pointed to the black blob where the church was supposed to be located. “See how it sticks out. Now, what we’re going to do is fly past it without touching the outer border.” He moved a Zeppelin model into position just short of the target point.
“When we get just about here, we let that Fokker go and slingshot it into the Everdream.”
Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) Page 8