by Unknown
“You got pigs aboard your ship?” Megeus asked, as our salves ebbed his bruises away.
He would take some easing before we reached the subject of Twill Ninefingers. “Pork, but no pigs.”
“I reckon it’s heavily brined.”
“How else to preserve it?”
“You humans and your salt. You spoil everything. What else you got to eat?”
“Megeus, you should be grateful for the repairs we’ve done to your accursed carcass.”
He caressed his throbbing skull. “Not when it was you who made the need for them.”
“A not unreasonable point. Tell us what you did with Twill and perhaps I’ll find a morsel or two for you.”
Megeus stared wistfully at the blue horizon. “I traded’im.”
“Explain.”
“Twill came here to hide out from someone who was chasing ’im. He brought two barrels of pickled eggs, a cask of jerky, a—”
“Skip the inventory part.”
“Then let’s say we ate what he brung us, and then he let slip exactly who he was fleeing from.”
“Kered Firsk the Flayer, the Monster Captain.”
Megeus blanched. “We had no wish for a fight with the likes of that.”
“So you traded him to Kered Firsk.”
“We would’ve, but we got another offer first. Ghosts. Their isle, Drowningtide, arose from the depths in the wake of a blistering storm. They came at night, all green and see-through. They offered us shark meat, deep-water
oysters, and a family of merfolk. It seemed a worthy trade, so I put Twill in a sack and handed ’im over.”
“They sensed you had a human with you?”
“They called ’im by name.”
“And how can you be sure they weren’t in cahoots with Kered Firsk?”
He shrugged, then winced at the effort. “Maybe they were. I cared not about their intent, but the quality of their provender. Those merfolk were firm and fresh.”
Aspodell and Seagrave returned from their search of the hills, hauling sacks of loot. “Wait now!” Megeus rose in protest, then wobbled, seized by dizziness.
“The man we seek? You sold him to ghosts. When we came to talk, you attacked and tried to kill us. If you’d won, you’d have drunk our blood and chewed our f lesh. All of these offenses warrant punitive action. You’re lucky we only care to confiscate your goods, and not those of your neighbors.” I spoke this last part clearly, for the benefit of the crowd. One by one, Megeus’s neighbors slunk off to their caves and tents. They proved themselves ready to defend their own hoards, but not to form a united front.
As we left for the boat, Otondo leaned down and grinned.
“I’d never eat a merman,” he said.
“Stop talking now, Otondo.”
“Too fishy.”
Once back on the ship, I met with my adjutants in the captain’s quarters.
Aspodell lounged with his bony backside in one chair and his long legs slung over the arms of another. He drank port from a tiny crystal glass. It was among the liquors we’d confiscated from the confiscators back in Moonplum.
Otondo paced like a caged bear, as he did when no better distraction presented itself.
Seagrave and Rira sorted through the bag of treasure we had taken from the cyclops. Seagrave stacked coins and counted pearls. Rira poked through potion bottles and assorted gewgaws. Among them she identif ied a magic ring, which one of our sailors could use in place of armor. The bottles, she said, contained doses of waterlung. They would prove themselves useful, likely sooner
than not. Many of the Shackles’ predicaments grow easier when one can breathe underwater.
I knew of Drowningtide from accounts in books, none of whose authors had set foot on any isle of the Shackles. “What can we say for certain about this ghost isle, Seagrave?”
He answered without slowing his counting. “Never been there, ma’am. It moves around, perhaps in keeping with the moontides. It’s an isle of drowned men.”
“You’ve not been?”
“Thank the sea fates, no.” Like several of the crew—who may well have picked it up from him—Seagrave subscribed to a peculiar sort of faith. It held that pirates and sailors were more tightly bound by the forces of destiny than land-dwellers. These forces he personified as sodden hags called the sea fates. After long years sailing together, I still had no idea whether he regarded the sea fates as genuine entities, or only metaphor. Perhaps one day I will learn the truth, and write it in another journal like this one. “And how does one wind up on this ghost isle?” I asked him.
“Gozreh the ocean-god is a possessive deity. When the waters of the Shackles claim a man’s life, Gozreh cleaves to him and does not let him go. When the sailor’s soul swims to the surface from its watery grave, he sometimes finds himself on Drowningtide’s misty shores. That’s as close to land, life, or celestial rest as he’ll ever get.”
“And what can we expect when we get there?”
Otondo stopped his pacing long enough to shudder. Seeing that I observed him, he went on as before, pretending to be untroubled.
“Hard to separate guess from truth, as them what lands there never comes back, even if they still breathed when they arrived. Safe to say only that it’s a melancholy place, more of the sea than the land. They say that drowning is
contagious there.”
“What does that mean?”
“Hanged if I know.”
“And what would they want with Twill? Why would a ghost want a lock broken?”
“I would not care to guess, ma’am.”
Rira spoke up. “It won’t be that, Challys Argent. The possessions ghosts carry with them are only memories, as half-substantial as the stray souls themselves. A f lesh-and-blood man could no more open a ghostly lock than wield a ghostly sword.”
“I have seen that said,” I allowed. I recalled the fact from the tattered copy of Maleg’s Realms of the Dead once housed in the archive of my youth. “But let’s not decide ahead of time what ghosts can and cannot do.”
Rira slowly nodded her mask at me, admitting the point.
“So then how do we find Drowningtide?”
From the pile of assorted loot she plucked a tool consisting of a f lat handle and a long, thin spike. The spike terminated in a small circular form.
“A lock pick,” said Aspodell.
“Yes,” said Rira, “One item from a matched kit. Well-kept. Not encrusted with dirt and mildew like the rest of Megeus’s hoard.”
“And therefore Twill’s, mostly likely,” I said.
Rira rose from her chair. “If we are lucky, I can focus on it and behold its mates.” She withdrew from beneath my bunk a copper cask I required her to store with me. Through her months of magical captivity, I kept to my promise to leave
it unmolested. I suspected that it would not open if I tried.
We retreated from my cabin. Seagrave lingered at the threshold long enough to jab meaningfully at the stacks of counted coins. Rira’s mask muff led a contemptuous snort.
I closed the door; we stood close by and waited. A low clattering sound marked Rira’s unpacking of items from her cask. Arcane chanting followed, in her sharp and husky voice. At length a vapor curled over the doorjamb. It smelled of seaweed and cinnamon. We heard the bang of a small gong, after which the incantation ended. After a few moments to repack her oracular implements, Rira opened the door. “Southwest,” she said. “Two hundred degrees.”
For ten hours we sailed. Rira repeated her magic, whatever it was, twice more. After her last divination, she announced that we’d reached our destination. I climbed to the aft deck to survey a placid ocean. Sunset threw f lecks of gold-and salmon-colored light onto the Fever Sea. By the charts we were on the northern edge of the island cluster we call the Shackles. The closest land was a large island about twenty miles to the south.
“There?” I asked Rira, pointing to it.
“No, there,” she said, indicating the empty ocean
just ahead. “Not yet, but there. Drop anchor. We’ll have time to fortify ourselves. It’s always best to be well fed—and more important still, halfway drunk—when rubbing shoulders with ghosts.”
We did as Rira said. I ordered the anchor dropped and joined my adjutants at table. We ate oysters and conch with pickled cabbage. From my cabinet I withdrew a bottle of muscat I’d been saving. We finished it and another lesser
bottle besides. Otondo, for his part, turned up his nose at the wine, sticking to his usual ghastly rum. It was strange, to drink with them as might a friend. Under the inf luence of the vine, Rira and Seagrave softened, seeming to despise
me less. Aspodell and the ogre balanced the equation with ever more vicious snarls and glares.
A shaft of moonlight speared through a porthole.
“Now,” said Rira. We rose on just slightly unsteady feet and strode to starboard. Above, the moon had slipped from behind a bank of clouds. It shone down on the waters, illuminating a floating city of the dead.
Indistinct and contradictory, Drowningtide shimmered, a place from an ever-shifting dream. Luminous spires rose up from a coral base to fill the sky. They recalled, in hazy detail, the styles of a dozen towns. A looming bulwark styled itself like a fortress of Mendev. Turrets evoked a Brevic keep. Beside them jostled a Qadiran minaret, a bronze mantis dome of Mediogalti, and an echo of Fortress Fangspire. Amid them thrust assortments of masts and sails. Loops of rotting rigging, festooned with seaweed, hung between them. There were more towers and roofs than foundations; many of the structures, as if left unfinished by a distracted painter, faded out where their foundations ought to have been.
Portals appeared in these uncertain structures. Figures issued forth, translucent, their edges overlapping. Phantasmal water streamed from them to pool around their hazy feet. Their forms testified to the grotesqueries of death by drowning. Some were bloated and blackened, swollen heads lolling on overwhelmed necks. The incorporeal flesh of others bore the bite marks of scavenging fish. Gobbets of skin and flesh floated from them as if they were still underwater. A few appeared relatively intact; I imagined that they’d been pulled from the water shortly after dying. Ghostly costumes varied from the pirate motley of the Shackles to those affected by the merchant and naval fleets of Rahadoum, Cheliax, Varisia, and Absalom.
In a mass, the ghosts milled toward a point on the shore closest to the
Aspidochelone. They stood silently, arms at their sides, expressions at
once woebegone and expectant.
“We’re taking a boat,” I told my adjutants.
“Are you certain?” asked Aspodell.
“You don’t want to invite them here, do you?”
“On second thought, no.”
The five of us clambered down to a boat.
Otondo hesitated by the rail. “And men who drown in the Shackles ends up here?”
Seagrave had climbed only a few feet onto the rope ladder. “So it is said.”
“This will be bad.”
“Why is that?”
“How many men have you had drowned, Seagrave?”
They exchanged trepidatious looks, shrugged, and joined us in the boat.
As the two of them rowed us toward the shore, a chill suffused the tropical air. By the time its nose touched the ephemeral island, my arms were a landscape of goosebumps. Seagrave tested the island’s solidity. To our collective surprise, it held his weight unyieldingly. Otondo hopped out, great cutlass in hand.
“Stow that,” I said, my lips unmoving.
After the standard show of reluctance, the ogre complied. The rest of us stepped from the boat; he and Seagrave pulled it farther up onto the eerie shore.
I took a central position, f lanked by the others.
A gaunt, shirtless ghost in a whaler’s cap separated himself from the pack and bowed to greet us. His left arm was missing, along with a good chunk of shoulder. The adjoining portion of his torso showed the slashing scars of a shark attack. In his extant hand he carried a long harpoon. He held it with
dignity, as one might a ceremonial staff.
I was glad of the wine coursing through my veins. Middling drunkenness lent a
leavening absurdity to the proceedings. By emphasizing the unreality of the
situation, it somewhat blunted the horror. “I am Challys Argent, of
the Aspidochelone,” I said, bowing in return. “We have no wish to disturb your rest, but—”
“You cannot disturb what we do not have, pirate.“ The ghost’s voice reverberated, out of synch with the movement of its lips. “This existence is far
from restful.”
“I sympathize with your plight.”
“Then you will grant us solace, in the form of your company. We shall lay on a feast.”
I bowed again. “There is no need, for we have just eaten. Who do I have the honor of addressing, sir?”
The ghost’s pale brow knitted in dismay. “You must excuse my lapse. Drowningtide receives few visitors. We have lost the knack for courtesy. I am Geor. Known in my day as Geor Whalespotter. Though that name is not used
here. Come with us to our banquet hall.”
“We do not wish to trouble you.”
Crimson undertones pulsed through his transparent frame. “We insist.”
I gave him a third bow and trooped after him. “We come in search of someone.”
“Let us spend frivolous time at table first, and speak of weighty matters when the port is served.”
“His name is Twill Ninefingers.”
A gout of seawater dribbled down Geor’s lips. “That name may hold significance. Reward us with your fellowship, and I’ll say more.”
“Is he here, then?”
“Come along.”
The ghosts thronged around us, whispering and chattering. The sound crawled across the back of my neck like a bug. They pressed in tight. They smelled us and tugged at our garments. I f linched as ghostly hands came near. When I could not avoid their touch, they seared my skin with cold.
We proceeded to a weird building I had not seen from the shore. It was a keep constructed from the remains of wrecked ships, fused together by some unknowable undead process. A trio of prows jutted from the asymmetrical structure, two to the left and one to the right. An assortment of crow’s nests competed for supremacy atop its gabled roof. Chalky barnacles dotted its surface. The front doors, which now swung open, were fashioned from rudders sized for seafaring giants.
They opened into a vast hall composed of several decks, laid on top of one another. Rope ladders connected the levels. We walked on sodden velvet carpet to the nearest ladder. The ghosts f loated up; we climbed, fearing for the structure’s solidity. On the highest deck, a long table stretched before us. Tarnished silver cutlery flanked chipped and mismatched plates. Nautilus-shell goblets awaited the pouring of wine.
A good four dozen places had been set, with chairs to match. On the decks below, more ghosts gathered, faces forlornly upraised. I found myself wondering what protocol they used to award the coveted spots at the head table. Then I reminded myself that the social strata of phantasmal society was the least of the questions I ought to be asking.
The pushing ghosts separated us from one another, surrounding us to enact a bizarre parody of a grand soiree. They herded me toward a railing. Each of my adjutants they buttonholed in like fashion. I saw Otondo baring his teeth, Seagrave clutching his stomach, and Aspodell disguising his discomfiture behind a barracuda grin. Rira alone, hidden behind her mask, maintained a semblance of composure.
In hissing tones, the Drowningtiders barraged us with questions:
“Does Naleno Long-Tress still dance at the Red Dolphin?”
“What year is it?”
“My name is Komak Kos Sab. Do any now sing of my deeds?”
“I beg you to take a message to my mother at Maquino. It is a small village on the northern—”
“Are there any of the old faith still left in the Cinderla
nds?”
Geor appeared at my shoulder. “Those four. They stand beside you, but not freely.”
“No.”
“You have enslaved them?”
“I prefer to say that they are imprisoned, and furloughed to my care. My sword—”
The ghost waved an impatient, blurry hand. “Ghosts find many subjects uninteresting. The mechanics of your dominance over them would be an example. You may care to know that you have dulled our days in Drowningtide.”
“How so?”
“We depend on new drownings to swell our ranks. Few flesh-folk visit our lonely home. With a f low of newcomers comes fresh experience, no matter how vicarious.”
“What has that to do with me?”
“No one sent more sailors to the sea’s damp embrace than those four. You prevent them from pirating now?”
“I bend their savagery toward positive ends.”
Geor’s inner light f lickered. “You deprive us of fresh souls.”
I backed into the railing, conscious of how far I would topple if I lost my balance. “If fewer are dying than would have otherwise, I find it hard to reproach myself.” A curious elation added itself to my fear and disorientation. The dead man had confirmed my greatest hope. By collecting my band of adjutants, I’d saved lives, and many of them. Whatever happened to me when the final toll came due would be worth it.
Geor pushed himself closer. “You shine with a lovely madness.”
I slid along the railing, evading him. A witty retort nearly came to mind. I have never been as good with them as I would like.
“You could be my bride,” he said.
“I refuse all such proposals, from the living and the dead alike.”
Geor slid through a mass of ghosts to ring a ship’s bell suspended near the table. The clang cut through me like a blade. I checked my adjutants; they too winced in pain.
“It is time to sit with our guests, and eat, and drink,” Geor announced.
The ghosts shoved us until we sat, arranging us so that none were near any of the others. Geor took his spot at the head of the table. The drowned whaler positioned me to his right. Clay amphorae appeared, borne by phantom cabin boys. They poured a red liquid into the goblets. It was the red of wine on the verge of turning to vinegar, and smelled like brackish water. Geor raised his goblet. “To a cessation from our solitude, no matter how brief.”