Out of the Caged Sea

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. They came in fishing boats, in merchant vessels, in the backs of wagons, on horseback, on foot. They came dressed as farmers and millers and blacksmiths. They came slowly, patiently. They looked like you. They looked like me. We thought that they were allies, friends, family. By the time we knew the truth, it was too late.

Seven Years Earlier

Calum lay below three decks, hidden in the bowels of the ship, his bedroll concealed behind a row of barrels. Only one knew he was there, lurking in the shadows, a guest of the First Mate whose eyes had widened at the jangle of the gold pouch, his duplicity predictable.

From his makeshift bunk, day and night, Calum heard the heavy sloshing of spermaceti, the blood of the sea, rolling within the barrels as the ship crested the waves and fell, bound northeast from the outer islands to the coast of Meriden. Days of idleness pressed down on him, driving away sleep, leaving his mind open to swirling black memories. The hammering of fists on a door, the iron clanging of boots on stone, the screaming of the girl smothered, drowned. He placed a hand out to keep the thoughts at bay, feeling the rough wood shell of the vessel. And just beyond it, the weight of the sea pressing into the hull of the ship.

He shifted, the hard floor unyielding beneath him. It was the middle of the night, hours from dawn, but he wouldn’t sleep. He sat up, feeling about in the humid darkness for the lantern. The light flared up, revealing the wealth housed there in oak and iron. Worth more than gold and silver. Worth more than most towns. And, to those who owned it, worth more than the lives of most men.

They were nearly to Meriden, he had overheard a sailor say just the prior day. It was worth the risk. He passed down the long rows of barrels, stepping wide, holding his balance as the ship creaked and keeled to one side. The stairs rose up through the crews’ quarters. The space lay hushed, filled with the sound of men snoring, others rustling about in the dark, changing or unchanging before or after their shift.

“Midnight. Or three,” he thought. “Most likely midnight.” A heavy warmth still radiated up from the deck, mingling with the suffocating scent of unwashed bodies and the foul exhalations of hundreds of foggy, rancid breaths. By three a cold ribbon of air would snake down through the decks, carrying the salt smell of the sea, the tang of storm clouds, the sour-sweet smell of the seagulls’ droppings that the swabbies scrubbed from the deck above.

He rose to the main deck, gulping clean night air, pressing down the bile that rose in his throat. There were no stars, only hazy moonlight filtering through the darting cloud cover. Several men stood watch in the stern, clustered about the wheel. They looked towards him, surprised at one who arrived off-shift in the dead of the night. He made his way to the railing and leaned out as if to vomit. The wind buffeted his eardrums, rocking his vision. He wiped his dry lips against the wool sleeve of his coat and turned away from the wind, making his way away from them, towards the forecastle.

A young boy sat at the edge of the deck wrapping lines, a heap of them beside him, some frayed and loose. He looked up, his mouth open, a silent question formed on his lips. Calum nodded to him and sidestepped the piles.

“Ahumari must be sore bitter tonight.” The boy hopped to his feet in one motion, his work forgotten.

Calum groaned inside and lengthened his stride. Behind him he heard the patter of the boy’s slight form, barely audible over the rising wind. As if in response, the mast swung slightly, the sails above him adjusting and catching the wind with a slap as the sailors righted their course.

“The men say that she’s always hungry, looking for the wicked. That she feeds on evil. She’ll take the whole ship down just to claim him.”

He snorted. “They’re toying with you, boy.” But his stomach clenched and he gripped the railing to steady himself.

“Taak.”

“What?”

“That’s what they call me. On account of my doing so much of it.” The boy grinned wide, a missing tooth marking his guileless smile.

“Yes, I see.”

“They say she knows the souls of all men. She stirs up the wind to gather the smells of them to herself. That’s how she knows.”

“Fairy stories.”

“No. Marek said that an evil person smells different. Sweet. You might think he’d smell rotten, but he doesn’t. He smells sweet. Do you know why?”

Calum sighed and stopped. “Why’s that?”

Taak grinned, pleased to have a captive audience. “A foul smell would drive men away, would sicken the stomachs of women, would warn children to run. But not a sweet one. The sweetest smell lures others. It disguises the evil that waits to destroy them.”

Calum leaned forward and made a show of sniffing the air. “I don’t know. You smell awfully sweet to me.”

Taak laughed, his round face turned up, his snub nose twitching. “Not me. I stink. I haven’t bathed in weeks. I’m as pure as the spring rain.”

Darkness filled Calum’s thoughts. “Is the spring rain pure?” he muttered.

“Of course…”

“You there!” They turned as a broad sailor, leaning contrary to the keeling ship, plodded towards them.

“Sepharam. Worst bastard on the ship,” Taak whispered.

The man drew near and clopped the boy across the head. “Back to work. Or I’ll throw you overboard.”

He wouldn’t do it, Calum knew. His type was all bluster. The kind of man who brought his mother flowers on the first day of the week and slipped chunks of meat to a small, shaggy dog under the table.

“I asked him to help me,” Calum stepped forward, meeting the man’s gaze. “He’s just doing as he’s told.”

“Not as I told him. Get on with you.” Sepharam said. Calum watched the man huff as Taak ducked and scurried back to the lines, rubbing the back of his head.

“Little better than a rat in lard. If it wasn’t for his mother, Cap’n would never tolerate him.”

Calum looked over the man’s shoulder, watching the sky blackening behind them, the man’s face dwindling into shadow. Ahumari, the boy had said. Sea legends. He’d heard similar ones near the wharves when he had been a boy. In his land, sailors believed that it was Thaden who ruled the waters, churning the sea to confound the plans of men. Most of the inland folk, his own people, dismissed such tales. Still, he shivered and drew his coat closer around him.

He looked at the man’s cap, pulled low over his ears, tied under his chin, and wished that he had had the time to acquire something similar. But the stores had all been closed for the night. Only the wharf had teemed with life - rats and whores and men - when he had stolen aboard The Huntress, following in the shadow of the First Mate.

The sailor stuffed his hands in his pockets, looked off into the rise and fall of the dark sea as if it bore some answer to a riddle he had long pondered. Looked back at Calum. “Don’t recall seeing you.”

“It’s a big ship.” Calum leaned out over the railing again and looked aft, ignoring the onset of vertigo, blinking hard to clear his head and looking again. Behind them a shadow grew out of the menacing clouds. A waterspout. A trick of the darkness. A ship. He couldn’t be certain.

“I suppose. What shift they have you on?” Calum saw a flash of suspicion in his eyes that the man worked to conceal.

“Storage.” It was the easiest to defend. The men who worked in the belly of the ship. Who caught the heavy swinging barrels as the men above lowered them down on ropes. Who then stowed them in neat rows. Hour upon hour of back-breaking work in the heat of the sweltering, airless cavern. A job that none wanted, that all were quick to overlook and avoid. They were the men no one minded too closely, fearful that their proximity would render others subject to just such a task.

Still, the man’s gaze flicked over Calum’s apparel, hardly the heavy woven pants and short coat of a man accustomed to working storage.

A shape rushed towards them from aft, leaning as he ran, a man comfortable with the high sea. “Something comes.” He pointed behind Sepharam, drawing his attention to the lurking mist in the distance. “Ahumari.”

Sepharam scowled. “Ahumari my ass. I’ll be glad to be docked and away from this lot. Never seen such a flock of superstitious men in my life.”

“But Marek...”

“Sea witches and charms. If that old man hasn’t infected the lot of you. Get back to your post,” he roared. The young sailor turned and raced back to the aft deck where a small crowd had gathered. “And the sails unmanned.” He turned back to Calum. “Storage? Who you answer to?”

Calum balked, his mouth dry. He didn’t even know the First Mate’s name. A blowing rain picked up around them. He licked his lips, grateful for the moisture.

“As I suspected.” Sepharam gripped him by the arm, overshadowing him by at least four or five inches. His fingers clenched harder, pulling him back towards the others. “You’re coming with me.”

There was nowhere to run. Below him were the decks, easily searched. Calum looked behind him, out beyond the bowsprit. They drew near the inner islands, low hulking masses in the water, like the backs of great sea beasts. One tower rose from the outermost point, a speck of flame marking the point where the land met the sea.

And beyond those, across an expanse of water, sheltered by the barrier islands, the craggy cliffs of Meriden rose into the sky. Monstrous walls carved into a city, speckled with light even at night. Calum gasped as the man dragged him across the deck. He looked back again.

He had heard of it. The gateway to Eleryon. A natural fortress no army could breach. But he hadn’t dreamed that it would be so large, so overshadowing even at such a distance. He felt himself shrink beneath it, felt its eternal eye on him, watching him draw near, assessing his worth, and finding him deficient.

He tripped on a roll of sailcloth and nearly fell. The man hauled him up, shoved him forward to where a group of sailors waited, looking from him to the growing mass behind them. “Watch him. Don’t let him out of your sight.” Sepharam rubbed his hands as if eager to be clear of him.

“It’s a ship,” one said. “Marauders.”

“It isn’t,” another shook his head.

“Ahumari,” several muttered until Sepharam scowled at them.

Two of the sailors held Calum fast between them, their grips firm but distracted. He followed their gaze. Moonlight scuttled behind the clouds, a faint luminescence that puddled like dying candlelight swallowed by muddy water. They held their breaths, peering into the darkness. A collective gasp rose as the clouds broke, casting silver light down through the rain, illuminating the three-masted silhouette of a ship bearing down on them.

“Shit.” Sepharam stamped his foot, peeled off his cap and ran one broad hand through his ruddy hair. “Can’t we go any faster?”

The man at the wheel glanced at him and back at the light tower before them. “I’ll try, but he’s lighter. Twelve-hundred barrels lighter.” His jaw tensed, squaring the corners of his long, angular face.

“Ah, damn. Damn it. We’re nearly there. Haul ass!” Sepharam pointed to another sailor. “You. All hands on deck. Now!”

The man froze and then ran, scurrying for the stairs down into the lower decks. Calum looked back. The ship came, rapidly gaining on them. There was no way they’d make it. He looked at the other men. They knew it.

Sepharam looked to the man at the wheel. “I’m going to wake the Captain.” He looked at the others, frozen in disbelief. “Move it! Arm the cannons.” Then he turned and took off at an ambling run.

“We’ll be outgunned,” one of the sailors said. The others ignored him. “Outgunned,” he repeated, his face ashen in the waxing moonlight.

“We’re close to shore,” Calum gestured to the light in the distance before them. “Relatively.”

The two on either side of Calum looked down at him as if they had forgotten him.

“Why? You want to swim?” one asked. “Cause that’s the only way out of this. All this oil, we’re a floating powder keg. Doesn’t matter how many shots we get off. One good one into the hold and we’ll light up like a torch.”

“That’s enough of that shit,” an older man growled. “No marauder would want to light us up. No sense in burning money.”

“Unless it’s Ahumari,” someone said. “She cares nothing for the wealth of men.”

Several men crowded around. One of them pointed at Calum. “I bet it’s him. No trouble at all until he appeared.”

Voices rose in confusion around him.

“He’s the one she’s after.”

“Throw him overboard.”

“Evil earns its just reward.”

“Seph said not to let him out of our sight.”

“Seph doesn’t believe. He’s as much to blame.”

“But he doesn’t even smell sweet.” Calum looked down to see Taak’s upturned face, his hair plastered to his head in thick strands. Several laughed.

“That’s ridiculous boy. No man can perceive the soul like she can.”

“But Marek said…”

Calum looked past them. The ship was nearly within firing reach. His mind turned. Before them the hulking islands grew larger, their backs like the backs of great tortoises rising out of the water. He could make it.

“She must have him before she destroys us all,” someone said.

“Throw me overboard,” Calum said. “Save yourselves.”

“No,” Taak whispered, his face crestfallen.

“But Seph said to keep a close watch…”

“Ahumari,” several nodded.

“You heard him.” A man reached out to take hold of Calum.

Just then a boom shook the air. Seconds later, a crash and the sound of splintering wood filled the air. Men dropped in terror. The ship rocked violently, the mast swinging wildly above them, the sails catching and then losing the wind. The deck rolled, heaving men in all directions. Calum soared above the surface and landed hard, his leg catching on an iron line that anchored an oil pot to the deck. A crack reverberated through his body. He clenched his teeth and cried out in pain. The ship rocked, rolling him to the far side of the deck.

Another boom sounded. Below him the ship moaned. Around him, men ran and crawled, some shouting orders, others praying under their breaths. Calum reached up and took hold of the railing, its wood gleaming, unmarred still. He stared at it in wonder that it would be so untouched by the violence that erupted around it.

He pulled himself up, rolled onto the railing and dropped over. He hit the water below with a rapid intake of breath as the cold froze his limbs and searing pain jolted his leg. Waves of agony radiated up through his hip, into his chest and down his arms to his fingers. His body clenched and then grew still, surrendered to the power of the waves. It was easy. Easy not to fight it, he thought, as the darkness covered him.