by B. V. Larson
Soon after, a scream sounded from below decks. A sailor came running out upon the main deck. A figure lumbered after him. Gruum recognized the shape that chased the man. He recognized the black felt cap that it wore and the silvery blade in its hand. Strips of canvas trailed from his limbs.
“Karn!” cried Gruum, rushing down onto the main deck. “I had thought you dead.”
The figure turned to face him. Gruum’s heart froze. Karn’s dead eyes gazed at him. Slack, dead lips pulled up into a familiar grin of recognition. Even as it grinned at him, the thing approached with ill intent.
“Stand back,” cried Therian, coming forward with his blades upraised. Other crewmen approached with boathooks and bared daggers.
“Don’t you know enough to stay dead, Karn?” Gruum asked his old friend, saddened at what must be done. He drew his saber and muttered an oath from the Steppes.
Dead, slitted eyes moved over the scene. Karn shuffled to the railing and halted to look back at Gruum. The leathery lips worked, but no words were issued.
Therian lunged to thrust Seeker into him yet again, but Karn toppled over the side of his own volition and disappeared into the cold, black sea.
The body did not resurface. Gruum grabbed Therian’s shoulder as they both stared down into the inky depths.
“How is this possible?
“I halted the cantrip. His soul was ripped from its natural path, but given no new destination.”
“So—Karn is a shade?”
“Something much worse than a spirit, I fear,” answered Therian. “It is a dead thing that yet harbors a mind and a shred of soul.”
“Like Vosh?”
“Do not speak that name.”
Gruum nodded. “Well, at least the crewmen are too scared to abandon the ship now.”
Therian nodded in turn. “I shall frighten them further, lest they think to slaughter us in our bunks.”
So saying, Therian set out upon the deck six indigo candles. He drew a pattern upon the oaken planks and worked a spell within the pattern. Sailors backed away and scattered. Therian continued his work.
Soon, Bolo appeared at his side. “May I suggest that my crew has seen enough sorcery for one night, milord?”
“Suggest as you will, Captain. You have told me you will land me in but one more port. Rest assured, the wind spirits I summon now will make sure it is the correct one.”
The crewmen watched in fascination and terror as Therian summoned more sorcery right before their eyes. One man fell upon his sword when the glimmering spirits came to hover over the ship. Another jumped from the stern, only to cry out moments later and beg to be hauled back aboard. None moved to save him, fearing what they might pull up with him. He wept, claiming that something grasped at his legs, but still none moved to save him. In time, his cries were lost in the dark seas of the ship’s wake.
Gruum knelt beside Therian in concern. “What of the boon the wind spirits will claim? Will it not be too great?”
“The Captain’s soul was strong. I can now pay the price for their help.”
Gruum lingered beside his master, frowning.
“Speak, if you must,” Therian said to him at last. “You are distracting me.”
“Milord, I’m wondering about our… our mission.”
Therian sprinkled dark wax and added tiny motes that sparkled, reflecting the fluttering candlelight in silvery flashes. Gruum imagined that the motes might be fish scales.
“I’m moving us closer to our goals even as you interrupt,” said Therian. He moved with speed and precision, clearly the soul he had consumed had given him rare strength and purpose.
“No, I don’t mean our mission to find your Queen, I mean our original mission.”
Therian glanced at him briefly, a flick of the eyes. “You wonder what all this has to do with rekindling the sun?”
“Yes, milord,” sighed Gruum. “That’s it exactly. Not that finding the Queen isn’t a noble goal. I just wanted to know that the other isn’t….”
“Forgotten?” finished Therian for him.
Gruum nodded.
Therian shook his head, as if amused. “The goals are one and the same. They are as intertwined as lovers on Midsummer’s Eve. Everything I do, I assure you, is focused upon nothing else. You might not see the connection yet, but I assure you there is one, and finding my Queen and my heir is absolutely necessary for my plans to succeed. If it were not so, I would not have spent a single hour in pursuit of her.”
“Your heir, milord?”
Again, that wintry smile played over Therian’s lips. “Did you not know? When you released her, she was already with child.”
Gruum’s mouth opened, but then snapped shut. He nodded and stood up. He had many questions, but thought the better of asking them. He sensed that he might not like the answers.
But then Therian spoke again, and Gruum was forced to hear more in any case. “Gruum,” said Therian, his voice deep now—bass. The spell had begun to take hold. “You should understand. We are upon a path, a very long path. The path leads to great power. One man does not turn a forest into a farm in a single afternoon. Many steps and seasons are involved. In a like fashion, we are in the early stages of our quest. We are only at the point of clearing the land of trees and rocks. We have not yet planted seeds, nor even plowed furrows.”
“You speak of a path. What path?” asked Gruum.
“The path to power. Great power. Sorcerous power great enough to change the heavens, to alter the course of the sun as it crosses the sky. That kind of power cannot be won in a day. It may well take a lifetime.”
Therian sat upon the deck, weaving his spell, which now consisted of circling the main mast with splatterings of mixed wax. Therian had added a new substance as well, which Gruum suspected might be blood.
Gruum hoped he would not spend the rest of his life on this mission, although right now such a thing seemed very possible. He continued to watch his master work the spell. Briefly, he mused that some magic was rather like baiting and trapping beasts. The sorcerer worked like a poacher, luring distant creatures with sounds and scents that appealed distinctly to those you wished to capture. In this case, fish scales and blood attracted wind spirits.
He shook his head to rid himself of such thoughts. He did not want to taint his mind with even the faintest knowledge of the dark arts. He found himself wishing he had not tossed his mead over the side after all. He went in search of a fresh mug to dull his senses.
After a time, the spell was complete. Soon thereafter, glimmering spirits enveloped Therian and he vanished from sight. Gruum could hear the howling of the summoned winds.
The sails snapped and pulled with unnatural force. The ship heaved around to starboard, and set a course not laid by human hands. The course was commanded by the sorcerous winds, and no rudder could alter it.
Barely audible beneath the roaring wind, Gruum could make out Therian’s faint screams. Gruum shuddered, knowing his master was paying whatever price the wind spirits demanded for their unearthly service.
-3-
For four days and four nights the wind spirits drove them with speed that all but broke the mast. The crew became increasingly restless. They muttered openly of murder and stared at Gruum with furrowed brows. Therian, the moodiest passenger, seemed unconcerned with their discontent. Rarely did the crew dare meet eyes with the sorcerer, and Gruum knew Therian preferred it that way.
As they sailed quickly southward, moving with unnatural haste, the air grew thicker and hotter until it felt like the velvet-gloved fist of a lady giant. The humidity softly wrapped Gruum in an inescapable grip. Never in his life could he recall feeling such heat outdoors. He found the sensation odd, but not altogether unpleasant. He was from the wild, wind-swept Steppes. Cold and heat he knew, but not this clinging air that draped him like a blanket. On the Steppes, when he had huddled near a roaring fire, the heat that stung his skin had been dry and less penetrating.
“I’ve been watching the
others,” Therian said, appearing at Gruum’s side. Knowing the step of his master, Gruum had not startled at his approach.
“Yes, milord?”
“None of them seem discomfited by this wet heat. In fact, they seem to relish the sensation. They are smiling more, and they remove their helms. Watch—often they will close their eyes and turn their faces up to the sun.”
“The sun itself is no longer a pale, ghostly disk in the skies above,” said Gruum. “Does it not bring you good cheer as well?”
“Cheer? I do not want to freeze, but this is too much. It is a hot malevolent eye that glares down with the intensity of an angry god.”
Gruum had no answer to this. The air was cloying, but not overly-so. He suspected that his King’s pale blue skin was overly-sensitive. Together, they watched the crew further. When the crewmen noticed the scrutiny, they quickly darted their eyes from Therian’s smoldering gaze in fear. This didn’t seem to perturb Therian.
“These men are like stray dogs,” said Therian, as if reading Gruum’s thoughts. “If they didn’t deeply fear me they would come for us in the night with bared, dirty blades. Look how they remove their helms, something unthinkable for a Hyborean when outdoors. Some even loosened the straps of their ragtag doublets and spread open their tunics at the chest.”
“It relieves the heat, milord.”
“It also serves to reveal the disgusting froth of spindly hairs most of them conceal beneath their filthy clothing. I can only surmise that this heat is stimulating the furry growth.”
“Don’t the men of Hyborea bear hair upon their bodies?” asked Gruum, honestly curious. He’d never seen much naked skin among the people of Corium. It had always been too cold.
Therian made a dismissive gesture. “Sometimes, it occurs amongst the low-born—or those who’ve crossbred with beings such as these.”
Gruum blinked at him. He wondered if his master truly considered himself human at all. Perhaps, he thought after a moment, Therian had a point. The Hyborean people were a different race, if not a different creature altogether. He thought to himself that Therian’s Queen, the Lady Sloan, had clearly been ‘crossbred’. Her skin had a healthy glow to it that attracted everyone to her. Her allure had certainly entranced Therian, for all his scoffing about barbarians.
“What of Lady Sloan?” Gruum asked.
Therian looked at him in surprise. Gruum tried to appear nonchalant, but he felt his face redden. He’d again brought up a sore topic, one he’d sworn to avoid.
Therian looked away again and nodded, conceding his point. “You are correct. Her skin tones show as much pink as blue. And she has attracted me like no other. I suppose I only dislike the looks of barbarian males. I find their females strangely acceptable.”
They smiled at each other. Therian enjoyed his joke while Gruum felt relief at his master’s good humor.
“What I can’t abide is the sharp increase of floating stench that follows this ship now in a roiling cloud. Can the heat possibly be making these barbarians even more offensive?” asked Therian wrinkling his fine, aquiline nose. “I had not thought it possible.”
“I believe you are correct in that assumption, sire,” said Gruum.
As the heat wore on into the fifth day, Therian finally relented and removed his own helm and opened his own tunic. Gruum watched the reaction from the crew with interest. Seeing him thusly revealed for the first time, the men’s response was one of startlement. His exposed chest was as hairless, smooth and pale as his face. This no doubt seemed perfectly natural to Therian, but gained him many new, furtive glances from the bemused crew. Indeed, his flesh was a great deal more pale than their own ruddy, craggy, randomly-haired heads. The King’s jet black hair flowed over skin that was a very pale blue intermixed with very light pink. No beads of sweat stood upon his forehead.
“Do you not sweat at all, milord?” asked Gruum after watching his master for a full day in the sun.
“I’m not sure my body is capable of producing such a vile substance.”
“Are we only so many red, dripping beasts to you?”
Therian’s answer smile was slight, thin-lipped and wintry. “Only in odor. I will take my meals from now on at the stern deck while you man the helm.”
The cabin boy was one of the few crew members that didn’t seem to dislike them. He often brought salted meats, fresh fish and warm-clime fruits without being asked. Gruum found the fruits, when sliced and peeled, to be quite palatable. They had a vague sweetness, a rubbery texture, and a slightly unpleasant aftertaste that grew upon the tongue over a period of time. An acquired taste, he supposed, which he was surprised to realize he was acquiring.
Gruum knew there was another, much more important reason why they took their meals upon the stern deck. With each day that passed Therian weakened. Simply remaining upright would become difficult for him, in time.
Inevitably, as each day faded into night, Therian’s false strength ebbed away. Gruum often found his master eyeing the crew in a predatory manner. Would they make it to their next port before the Dragons must be fed again?
Upon the sixth night, in the dark, Gruum found his lord half-slumped over the rail, one hand clutching the pommel of Succor.
“Are you well, milord?” asked Gruum quietly.
“You know I’m not. This blade—and its twin—they beg me to wield them.”
“Are they ensorcelled?”
“Nay. They speak only in my mind. They speak because I give them leave to. In truth, it is not the swords that speak, but my hunger for new strength. Perhaps it is the voices of the Dragons I hear. They beg me every night to allow my swords to drink the blood of just one more foul soul. But I will not release the blades. I have done so too often. The crew is close to mutiny.”
“I suspect you are right about that, sire.”
“I must hold on until we reach the farthest southern ports. There they can put me off and there I can sate myself upon some deserving ogre of a man. One more day. The seventh day. We shall reach the last port soon.”
Gruum nodded, but he suspected Therian had even darker reasons for holding back. He suspected that once released in his famished state, Therian may well massacre the entire crew. He eyed his master and chewed his lips until they oozed blood. Only he had any real inkling of the battle that his master must win each night to keep them all alive.
Gruum looked up at the sails then, which still snapped in the unnaturally strong winds. If one watched closely, the glimmer of a wind spirit could be seen. The spirits would blink down at the crewmen when stared at. They could only be seen at night, and for the most part the only thing a man could see was their eyes, which were long slits of glimmering magenta.
-4-
Two hours after midnight, long before the dawn of the seventh day, Gruum’s eyes snapped open. At first, he was not sure what had awakened him. Then he heard it again. A creaking, scraping sound. The sound of a boot being dragged slowly over the splintered deck boards.
His hand slid immediately to the pommel of his knife. Hard fingers closed in a claw-like grip over his wrist.
“Milord!” he managed to get out, but then they fell upon him, and he could not make a further utterance. He suspected his throat was about to be slit. He struggled with an animal strength while blows fell upon his body and oaths and grunts of displeasure were muttered by men who received his kicks and blindly thrusting elbows.
“Where is the other?” asked a rough voice.
“He’s not here.”
“Find him, fool,” said the rough voice. Gruum now recognized the voice. It was Bolo, and he had betrayed them. The man Bolo had spoken to thumped away.
Gruum bit down on a filthy set of salt-crusted fingers. The man’s hand leapt away from his face with a curse. Gruum spoke quickly while he was able. “Bolo, I beseech thee for all our sakes, do not provoke the sorcerer.”
In the dark, a chuckle met Gruum’s words. “Let him speak, but hold him,” said the new Captain. “Your master is as
weak as a bilge rat. We will not give him time to speak foul spells when we catch him.”
“One more day, Captain,” said Gruum earnestly. “One more day, and we will be off your ship. Let us go and save your crew.”
The other hesitated. The crewmen who held Gruum didn’t slacken their grip, but he felt in their silence a hint of uncertainty. None of them wished to slumber with the Dragons until the end of time.
“The sails rip further every day with his cursed winds. He is wrecking this ship and damning us all further each hour he is upon it. Even now, I feel the worm-like words you speak wriggling in my mind. You are the sorcerer’s monkey, and no doubt when we cast you over the side, you will return to your natural form.”
After that, Gruum was gagged and he couldn’t get out another word. He struggled, but they were too many and they held every limb fast.
A blade reflected in the starlight that filtered down through the cracks in the deck above. Gruum watched as the short line of metal came close to his face.
“Let me end it now, Captain,” said the crewman with the knife in Gruum’s face.
“No, we must find the sorcerer first. Perhaps, if needed, we can bargain with this imp’s life.”
Thumping boots returned to the cabin. “Sir, the sorcerer climbs into the rigging. He is up amongst the strange spirits that haunt the ship’s sails!”
“How did he—?” began Bolo.
“It was the cabin boy, sir. I found him helping him, giving the demon a leg up.”
Bolo loosed a stream of curses. “Let’s go up. Bring the imp with us.”
Gruum was marched up into the starlight. He realized, as he was roughly hustled into the open night air, that it was not only starlight that lit the scene. Overhead, like a celestial shower, the wind spirits moved and shimmered. They looked like soap bubbles, perhaps, bubbles that shown with inner light and twisted into alien shapes. Magenta eyes shown brightly, gazing down upon them. What had Therian done? And where was he?