by Warren Fahy
“We’ll see if I have freed anyone,” Nil said. “Now let’s go to work!”
The renegades gave a final exultation and rolled up their sleeves as Lelinair caught his eyes with hers, and she held them fearlessly though it had never been more perilous to do so. And Nil smiled back, and felt fear for the first time.
Nil’s men set up tables before the boathouse so they could take names and task volunteers according to their skills. Many turned out to be craftsmen, and these departed to fetch their own tools from their shops. Nil soon realized that the skills and resources of ten large shipyards would be employed on every joint and trimming of the Sea Mare.
Nil’s foremen laid out the drawings of the vessel so that the enterprise could be overseen and divided. To his relief, there were so many captains and master shipwrights present that the task organized itself quickly. Each took one part of the ship and studied the plans. They soon knew what needed to be done and enlisted teams to do it. Nil’s men were relegated to supplying the swarm of workers with raw materials and general directions on what to do.
In the history of Ameulis, the Sea Mare would be the longest ship ever launched and the only ship over 100 feet to bear two masts. Many mariners less wise than Nil would have scoffed at the Sea Mare’s design, predicting that she would capsize or travel in circles, or not move at all. But the distinguished captains from the Congress who now stood before the giant vessel praised her ingenuity, innovation and beauty, expressing not too much surprise and not a little envy.
Nil listened to their words, preferring to wait for the sea’s compliments but smiling with pride as they divided into the crowd to lend their able heads and hands to her completion.
Two more captains approached him. One was almost as tall as Nil. Beneath his straight and roguish nose a large mustache curled. He carried a dark green cape on his shoulders clasped by a buckle of Norlanian gold. He bowed. “I am Tarsus Flint, Captain of the South’s Pride, sir. I wish to offer my congratulations and gratitude for not only your deeds today but for the months you have labored on this marvelous craft. She is a worthy vessel, sir, to be the flagship of our King.” The captain bowed again.
Then the captain of the Green Ghost, Nedry Skylar, spoke beside him. “You know me, Nil Ramesis, and I have heard your name before today. I also offer my congratulations and allegiance. I will gladly escort the Sea Mare on her voyage with my ship.”
“Thanks, Captain Skylar, but no. Stealth is of the essence if we are to penetrate the Terrors. More than one ship will call attention, and this one has defenses yours does not.”
“Then I wish, by your leave, to install a sail such as this aftward one aboard the Green Ghost, should it prove successful. Would you allow me to study your plans and follow your example?”
“Why, yes,” Nil said. He had heard much of Skylar and his ship, said to be the fastest on the seas. “Yet even with this added sail, the Green Ghost shall never outrun the Sea Mare.”
Skylar’s eyes flashed and then he grinned. “Someday,” he said, “we’ll race.” Then with a hearty laugh he left to help prepare the Sea Mare’s chainplates for the raising of her mainmast.
Nil felt a tap on his shoulder and, turning, he caught Lelinair’s kiss. She stroked the tense curls on his head and smiled as laughter and cheers came from onlookers. “What shall we ladies of Ameulis do for the Sea Mare?” she asked, chorused by the women in the crowd.
For a long moment the mariner puzzled. The idea of women, let alone Lelinair, working in his shipyard had never occurred to him. His consternation was a little more apparent than he would have wished as he considered the question, and Lelinair laughed.
“Nil, how will your great ship move?”
“By sail, of course.”
A great round woman, who had dashed out of her house to join the rebels over the squawks of her tiny husband, shouldered her way through the others. “Show us your needles and cloth and we’ll make your sails, Master. We’ll see if women belong in a shipyard.”
Nil smiled, bested. “Very well! A small start has been made. Have my men in there give you the measures and materials.”
“We’ll take care of it, Captain,” said Lelinair. With a serious look and a confident nod, she turned away.
Nil looked after her, half in joy and only now half in dread.
The sun was bright and warm, and the people shed their coats as the shipyard hummed with happy noise. Some old salts taught the others chanteys as they toiled. The renegade detachment of the Mayoral Guard patrolled outside the yard, not changing their uniforms, and some escorted the wagons that left to fetch stores, equipment and tools.
Nil made the rounds, answering questions and giving guidance. Laborers, merchants and aristocrats worked side by side, sweating in the newborn sun. He lent a hand here and there but was almost rendered idle by the passion of his new employees.
As the sun rolled past noon, the Sea Mare grew like a living thing. The bowsprit was hoisted into place and its block and tackle fastened. The companionways were built and their rails beveled and varnished. The hull was coated three times with hard lacquer, and scuttles were cut to ventilate the Green Deck while hammocks were strung for the crew.
Meals were served in shifts to the hungry laborers, another vital chore taken over mainly by women, and when all had gratefully eaten and the sun dipped two hours before setting, Nil climbed the forecastle and announced that it was time to launch the ship, though far more work remained after that.
“Captain Ramesis,” cried a voice.
The mariner turned and saw Poladoris Martharr and Senjessi Tillow.
“You’ve come in time to lend a hand, Father,” hailed Nil. “Now we shall see if the Sea Mare floats, eh?”
“What a wonder she is,” Senji cried. “Look at her, Merania! You must paint her!”
“I will,” said Merania, her wild eyes huge as she memorized the ship and imagined her at sea.
“I ask you all to gather round and seize the ways,” Nil shouted. “Two teams of horses will pull, and together we’ll take her down the skidway. Are the horses ready, Mister Neery-Atten?”
Lince had the reins of the two lead horses, which headed two lines of five Polwairns harnessed to the stocks. The lead horses snorted and stamped the ground before the broad mariner.
“Wait,” cried a voice, and everyone saw the old, silver-haired man who had climbed on the ship to thank Nil for freeing them from Blox. He ran over the main deck carrying a great bundle wrapped in rags on his back. Climbing the forecastle, he dashed to the bowsprit and jumped onto the scaffold beneath the thrusting spar. Tacking his cape around him to the bowsprit to hide his actions, he worked furiously, and everyone could hear him filing and pounding and grew impatient, wondering what the devil he was up to, when he finally ripped his cape away and stood back to reveal his work. Pegged to the knighthead beneath the bowsprit neighed the rampant head of a mare, carved wild in wood and painted blazing white with black eyes and nostrils.
Nil’s heart thrilled to see the figurehead that would lead the Sea Mare. The people gave a cheer as the silver-haired artisan jumped down from the Sea Mare. Poladoris Martharr himself praised the man’s work as he took a place beside them to push.
All took hold of the frames as Nil, standing on the prow, gave the signal. Everyone put shoulder to stock, including Merania, the Lady Senthellzia Tunn, Lelinair and the Queen Mother herself. A grating rumble rose as the ship inched forward in its wooden cradle down the stone channel over rolling logs of beechwood. Teams of men laid down more logs before her, and the horses strained with bulging shoulders as they climbed onto the thick seawalls of the dock to either side.
The Sea Mare rolled faster, the rolling logs rumbling beneath her, until her bow smashed into the water and sprayed over the men on the seawalls. She leveled, rising off her stocks in the deep channel, and streamed forward as men and horses pulled her forward and moored her to the right side of the dock. The Polwairns dragged the wooden ways back up the skidway
as foremen swarmed over the ship with plans in hand and carpenters in train. Teams of shipwrights conferred on the seawalls as they prepared to step the masts and secure the standing rigging.
Before the sun had retired that day, the network of the Sea Mare’s companionways were installed and finished. Port and starboard ladderways joined the aftercastle to the main deck. And between these ladders, two wide doors in the aftercastle now opened to the galley. Two ladderways descended from there to the Green Deck, the great mid-deck that stretched the length of the ship where the crew was berthed. From here, two more stairways led to the long hold where the ship’s stores were stowed.
The sun’s victorious signature endorsed the day with a violet sunset over the western mountains as the wooden crane on the dock lowered the great masts into place. It was twilight when both were stepped and their stays were rigged fast as the men began stringing and tarring the cordage.
Dusk fell as the first wagonloads of stores began filling the completed portions of the Sea Mare’s hold, replacing the bags of sand that had temporarily provided her ballast.
Finally, Nil climbed to the aftercastle and called for the industrious laborers’ attention. “Thank you all! This day you have achieved miracles. Now, as light leaves us, it’s time for rest. Go home to your beds and sleep with the decision you have made today. Come back if you still agree with it!”
There was a commotion and, stepping forth, a tall young man, who was the very likeness of Nil 15 years ago, said, “I am Lanning, Captain, sailor of the White Shark. Many of my friends wish to work through the night. Lanterns may be fetched and hung round. I don’t feel the sun’s weariness. I wish to stay and finish this craft!”
The entire crowd echoed agreement and Nil laughed, a little in awe at Lanning’s resemblance to himself a decade ago when he was less wearied, perhaps, and he submitted to the enthusiasm of his countrymen. “So be it! By my leave, stay, as I of course will, but take care not to tip a lantern and burn her down. Fetch lights from the yard house!”
Aided by both full moons, plentiful lanterns and a warm wind, the crowd of workers pressed on through the night on their myriad labors.
“My Lord Mayor,” Rishen said. “We have reports that Nil Ramesis and his rebels work diligently, taking no rest, presenting no opportunity for a surprise attack as a well-armed and growing guard surrounds their shipyard. Several argosies, the Green Ghost and the White Shark among them, have gone renegade and lie anchored fully manned inshore off Ramesis’s shipyard, flying the flag of Gheldron.”
Blox sat in his chair at the head of the Congress Table, looking at the dark city flecked with lights like the now clear sky above. He feared and hated the eyes twinkling there even more than the lights below.
“Shall we attack, my lord?” urged Rishen. “Even without the advantage of surprise? Our numbers can surely crush these few dissenters.”
“Don’t be so sure, Rishen,” Blox mused. “Let them toil away. Let them launch their meager hope and send their sacrifice into the King’s labyrinth. My Master would not have sprung his trap until it was complete. The Terrors are impenetrable. Their mission will fail. Their heroes will perish. And in the meantime the people of Ameulis will cling to false hope. This ill-fated voyage will make them complacent. When Nekkros comes, they will be unprepared.”
Rishen bowed before Blox, hiding his doubt. “In your wisdom, my Mayor.”
The hold of the Sea Mare was wide and deep. In order for her to maintain correct trim, stores must be carefully distributed and barrels must be filled with water and moved to even her ballast as supplies were consumed—in Nil’s theory, at least. Nil designed the storage bins to manage the ship’s ballast and allow barrels to be stacked and rolled as needed.
Supplies were loaded behind them even as five men toiled to finish the hold: Bultin, a great muscle-bound sailor with rounded shoulders; Rawley, a bald, red-bearded carpenter with a wooden leg; Rollum, the fair-haired Norlanian prince; Tintil, another giant seemingly made of boulders stuck together; and Lanning, who might be mistaken for the younger brother of Nil Ramesis. Tintil sawed the last frame, Rawley filed the last edge, Bultin drove the last peg, Rollum fitted the last brass handle, and Lanning painted the last spot with varnish.
The two gleaming rows of compartments matched the ship’s plans covered in shavings, varnish, sweat and a little blood at their feet. Their shirts were stained and their hair and beards flecked with sawdust. They admired their handiwork as they walked back along the bowed deck as supplies were lowered through the sea doors.
When they reached the stern, they passed a broad shaft that rose from the hull. A thick iron spring coiled above it in a wooden frame. The shaft pierced the hull and apparently could be shot downward by knocking out a chock wedged in the shaft’s side. The top of the shaft was curious: a deep groove was lathed into the harpoon, and above it the shaft was lathed wider, like a cork. The men shrugged as they walked around the formidable harpoon, careful not to give it a nudge.
The weary team climbed past the Green Deck where Nil and others installed hammocks, tables and watertight bulkheads. They passed through the crowded galley and emerged on the main deck, plated gold under the Second Moon, where men were building balustrades and stringing the mainmast’s chainplates by lantern light. Climbing onto the sterncastle, where harpoons were being fixed to the deck, they looked over the ship at the sea crashing before the Sea Mare’s prow on the other side of the sea doors.
The wind caught the spray, sending gold dust over the gates and across the bow. And their hearts quickened; for standing on this ship they felt equal to anything the sea could send against them.
The sun found the most prominent captains, congress members, artists, artisans, merchants, lords, ladies and even lawyers of Ameulis strewn in slumber across the decks of the Sea Mare. But this was not the greatest surprise. For overnight a ship had materialized where only a hull had been the previous day.
Those who had taken a few hours of sleep now cast off blankets and stretched, smelling the bacon and coffee that the women, who had slept in shifts, had gloriously prepared in the yard house.
Others, who had chosen to sleep in a bed, woke to breakfast in the many hamlets of Gwylor, and they ate heartily, laughing, and all around them wondered at their easy gaiety, which over the last year had been stifled in public places. Some passersby were alarmed to hear them insult Blox without care, for they had not yet heard of Blox’s defeat at the Congress, though these grew fewer as a youthful spirit awakened across the ancient city.
By mid-morning, all were back to their labors, and there was a fresh camaraderie in the company, and many more recruits. Young sailors sprang up the rigging, pulling lines aloft with their teeth. After a score of men were positioned along the cordage and all their lines fastened to the mainyard, they gave great heaves and the heavy spar surged over the main deck.
From the crow’s nest, Lince helped Bultin and Tintil, who hung on the shrouds to each side, as they guided the yard. Lince pulled the two cable loops of the yard through brasures in the crow’s nest and hooked them over great cleats on each side of the mast as others secured the stays. A round of applause lauded the feat.
Wherever he was in his shipyard, men came to Nil and applied for duty aboard the Sea Mare. One of these approached now as he and Karlok took in four wagons loaded with arrows and 30 bows. They discussed where to stow them in the hold for quick access through the sea doors as a young man introduced himself.
“Lord Ramesis, I am Dillon Tobbs!” He shook Nil’s hand vigorously. “I am, by profession, a naturalist, sir. You consulted my father concerning the Gyre several years ago, if you remember?”
Nil recalled the learned old man who had explained to Nil how a Gyre caught and killed its prey, the black nautilus. It was with his help that Nil devised his defenses. “Well, Mr. Tobbs,” Nil said. “If we succeed, it will mean fortune and fame for you, young man. If we fail, death.” Nil shrugged. “Still fame, perhaps.”
“I do not seek fame, fortune, or death, but knowledge, sir!” Tobbs declared. “And that is what I will give to the future, living on in that way.”
“You’ve a courageous heart, and good judgment to go with it, young Tobbs,” said Nil.
“Pack your gear,” Lince said. “We’ll give you a berth in the fo’c’sle so you can stow your instruments.”
“Thank you!”
“Now I suppose you read and write?” Nil asked.
“Why, of course. I’ve had the best edu—”
“Write a fair phrase, I wager?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Your charge will be to keep a detailed journal of our voyage. I want you to record everything you see, each night. I have devised buoys that will keep safe your writings and bear our news to the mainland should we be lost. It will be your job to determine when those buoys should be tossed to preserve our record.” Nil put a hand on Tobbs’s shoulder. “Understood?”
“Oh yes, sir!” cried Tobbs. His pudgy, bread-dough face was urgent as he saluted. He bowed solemnly, pivoted on a heel, and dashed off to collect his books and instruments.
Lince grinned. “He’ll lose a long lunch when the fo’c’sle starts heavin’. Thirty-foot plunges in a hammock at midnight’ll grow his eyeballs, some!”
Nil chuckled. “He’ll serve us well.”
“Look yonder, ’tis that Sarkish doctor, coming our way.”
Indeed, a tall Sarkish man with skin as black as midnight and kinked reddish hair cropped short presented himself with a raised hand. He was a handsome and ageless man who bore scars of sword-strokes on his strong arms. He wore a shirt of green wool, and yellow pants with faint purple patterns gathered at his ankles above sleek moccasins. Over his shoulders he wore a black, yellow-beaded cape. “I am Bruthru Zee, sir,” he said in Ardeyon so immaculate it classed as royal. “A physician. I have experience dressing battle wounds. Would you have need of me?”