In the Darkness Visible

by Ted Neill

  A smoking piece of roof from the castle plowed into the deck of the Tantallon like a meteor. It exploded through the planking and shot out the bottom of the hull. The ship swung violently to starboard, its mooring line snapping it back with equal force just before the ship knocked into the larger hull of the Elawn.

  The crippled Tantallon still floated, but Adamantus led them to the Elawn. Mortimer, Dameon in his arms, raced up the gangway. Gabriella realized she was the only one who could untie the ship’s mooring ropes. She sprinted to the first stone plinth and yanked the knots apart. As she bent over the ropes, the back of her neck tingled with more flashes of heat from the castle. Sybil’s temper was a terrible one. Gabriella untied the second line and let the ropes zip off the side of the cliff. The wood of the hull was smooth under her palms, and she knew a constant, steady push could send the large vessel moving. A ship floating on air was even more responsive than one in water, and the Elawn shifted quickly from her efforts. She ran to the gangplank as it slid across the grass towards the cliff’s edge.

  She was halfway up it when it cleared the cliff and suddenly snapped downward, making Gabriella lose her footing. But Mortimer was there to catch her by the sleeve. Gabriella felt herself slipping out of her clothes, but he leaned dangerously over the edge of the top of the gangway and wrapped her wrist in his other hand.

  Dameon was screaming her name.

  Gabriella stopped sliding, but Mortimer had overcommitted, holding himself in place with only a single boot hooked around a railing. Adamantus took the waistband of Mortimer’s trousers in his teeth and pulled them both onto the deck, like a faithful dog pulling his master from a river.

  “Smart animal.” Mortimer nodded at the elk as he lay on his back, his chest rising and falling.

  Gabriella lay panting but she had only seconds to catch her breath.

  “The sails,” she cried, racing to mid-deck. While she unfurled the main shrouds in the panels, Mortimer carried Omanuju below, Gabriella warning him to avoid the weak section of the port deck. The Elawn was more than a stone’s throw from the cliff’s edge now. Away from the shelter of the island, the wind gusted. Gabriella cranked the wheel, heaved a lever down the way she had seen Ghede do, and banked the Elawn into a wide turn. The ship listed, its sail sweeping close to the rocky cliffs. Dishes tumbled from the cupboards and crashed in the galley.

  With a strong wind, the sailcloth bellied outward, bloody in the light of the setting sun. She flew the ship east, with the sole thought of escaping from the reach of Sybil’s wand, but knowing full well they eventually would have to turn back west. The voyage was over, their hopes of reaching Dis, retrieving the treasure, and saving the Tower of the Dead lay in ruin. They would have to go home—if it was even possible to survive the return trip—empty-handed and defeated.