“Where’s your boss?” Infidel asked me as she helped Sage back to her feet. Sage was only fifteen, and had looked small when I saw her next to Rigger, but she was a good three inches taller than Infidel.
I wish I could have at least shrugged to answer Infidel’s question. Sorrow hadn’t cared enough about the outcome of the fight to help defend the ship in person.
I bent over the railing, listening. I could hear laughter, a drunken, high pitched guffawing. I scanned the waves and spotted Captain Romer far out in front of the ship, not where I’d expected her to be at all.
“I’m bringing the ship back around!” Jasmine called out to me. “Prepare to jump!”
Gale’s drunken laughter grew louder as we lurched across the waves. I pulled up the slack rope that trailed in the water and wrapped the end around my wrist. As I did so, the captain’s laughter suddenly died off. I looked down and saw only a single hand, stained amber, as it sank beneath the waves.
I leapt, leaving my tri-corn hat hanging in the air. I wondered if my wooden body floated. It was called ‘driftwood’ for a reason. Luckily, I didn’t need to test my seaworthiness for long. I practically landed on top of Captain Romer, her body limp as I wrapped my free arm around her. The line around my wrist snapped taut, and I wondered just how much force it would take to tear my arm free of my torso. Fortunately, Sorrow’s handiwork proved suited to the task. My arm held, even when my body slammed into the hull of the ship.
I was beneath the surface. Captain Romer’s head bent backward as I gazed down upon her, her jaws slack, small bubbles rising from her lips. I’d heard that Wanderers had a pact with Abyss, the primal dragon of the sea, that guaranteed they would never die from drowning, but his pact apparently didn’t extend to – how had Sorrow worded it? – the
abstract
realms.
Far below, I saw a light; I think it was Gale’s phosphorescent sword tumbling ever deeper, growing fainter. For the most fleeting instant, I swear the sword came to rest upon something pitch black, undulating, serpentine, and vast. A sea monster? Whatever it was, the sword slid from its back and vanished into darkness. Whatever I’d glimpsed was free to move about without my ability to track it.
It was well past time to leave. Though it was utterly graceless, I placed Romer’s limp belly against by crotch and wrapped my legs as tightly as possible around her hips. With both hands free, I dragged myself up the rope, in yard-long lunges. In a few seconds, I was above the surface. Instinctively, I tried to breathe. Captain Romer displayed no such instinct. As I made my way slowly to the deck, she didn’t cough, or even twitch.
By the time I reached the rail, a half-dozen arms reached over to grab at us. Mako and Brand both looked fully recovered from their ordeal, and as they lugged me over, Sage and Jetsam grabbed their mother and pried her free of my leg-lock. Menagerie was back on his feet, or paws at least, and Bigsby had recovered both his wits and his wig, and was currently tying Purity’s arms behind her back. Infidel, I saw, had taken possession of the fallen Ice-Moon Blade. Her enchanted armory was growing rather impressive.
I found my way back to my feet and looked around for my hat. I spotted it near the bow. I reached it, but before I could bend over, the ghost of Jasmine Romer once more materialized and lifted the hat from the deck, offering it to me.
“Well done,” she said.
I wanted to shake my head, but couldn’t. I could make no attempt at communication due to Sorrow’s command, but I was certain that Gale was dead.
“You’re troubled, young spirit,” she said, her voice growing soft. “You spotted it, didn’t you?”
It? Was she talking about the sea monster?
“The beast that tracks us is Rott,” she said with a sigh. “The dragon of entropy and decay. He passes freely between the material world and the abstract realms. He is the only truly universal elemental force.”
If I’d been able to speak, I would have asked if there were a dragon of taxes. But, considering that her daughter was dead, I was grateful that my lack of voice spared her from my tasteless humor.
“Do not think that, by surviving the death of your body, you’ve cheated Rott for long. There is no true immortality. Things fall apart, even things that are only the memory of things. In the end, entropy will devour us all. We risk destruction any time we traverse this realm. But, for now, you’ve brought my daughter another day, at least.”
As she said this, I heard coughing behind me. Captain Romer was flat on her back, her arms flailing limply as she spat up wine. Mako and Rigger flanked her, and Jetsam was at her feet. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she let loose a high-pitched shriek that devolved into laughter as she kicked Jetsam hard in the chest and let loose with twin uppercuts that caught Mako and Rigger beneath their chins. She sprang up as they went down. Her motions were exaggerated and woozy, but she landed on her feet and managed to snatch up a belaying pin from the pin rail. She brandished the improvised club as she shrieked, “I’ll kill the lot of you!”
She let loose a fierce growl to give weight to her threat, but mid-way through her her growl changed into giggling.
“I’m on it!” shouted Infidel, flying across the deck in a single hop to land in front of the drunken captain. She said firmly, “Put the club down! You know who I am, right?”
“Infidel,” Gale laughed, before unleashing a haymaker punch with the belaying pin. Infidel blocked the blow with the shaft of her hammer. Gale attempted a kick, but Infidel dodged by jumping a yard into the air and hanging there.
Suddenly a gust of wind howled across the deck, catching Infidel and throwing her back. She tried to spin in the air to take control of her flight, but succeeded only in turning her face toward the foremast as she raced toward it. With a sound like a butcher’s mallet pounding a slab of tough meat, Infidel slammed into the wood. The Gloryhammer was left floating in the air as she dropped to the deck, blood pouring from her temple.
CHAPTER EIGHT
INADEQUATE VESSELS
F
OR THIRTY SECONDS
, pandemonium reigned. Mako and Jetsam tackled their mother as she cursed, giggled, and got in a couple of good licks with the belaying pin before being dragged down by their weight. A dozen ropes snaked toward her to snare her thrashing legs, until violent winds pushed them back. Cinnamon rushed forward, dodging her mother’s kicks, crouching to place her hand on the bare skin of her mother’s midriff. Gale’s drunken giggles cut off in mid-breath, replaced by gagging. Her limbs went limp as all color drained from her face. Jetsam released his mother’s arm and leapt skyward, kicking to gain altitude as she began to projectile vomit the wine she’d swallowed. Now too sick to command winds, Gale was quickly wrapped by Rigger’s ropes. Even after she’d emptied her stomach, Gale continued to spit, trying to rid her mouth of whatever foul flavor Cinnamon had inflicted upon her.
Meanwhile, Bigsby jogged across the deck, holding his wig on with one hand, as he stretched his other hand toward the Gloryhammer, which hovered in mid-air six feet directly above Infidel’s fallen form. “I claim the holy power that is my birthright!” he cried as he used Infidel’s butt as a trampoline to leap for the hammer. Bigsby’s jump was a good six inches short of his target. Please note that I do not, in anyway, place the blame on the springiness of my wife’s derriere, which I assure you is more than adequate. He landed on the deck, hard, his plate armor clanging, and was pushed to his belly by a snarling dog with wings. Menagerie had finally recovered from his chill.
I moved toward Infidel, who lay limp and unconscious on the deck. I wanted to kneel and investigate her injuries, but this simple act lay outside the range of freedom that Sorrow had granted me. I couldn’t even motion for one of the Romers to come to her aid.
To add further to the distractions that kept Infidel from getting help, one of the ice-maidens recovered her wits and leapt to her feet just then, grabbing Sage from behind. Sage looked curiously unworried as the ice-maiden pressed a sword against her throat and shouted, “Jabber jabber jabber!” This might have been a threat in her native tongue, but on this boat all it meant was, “I’m an idiot! Kill me!” Her request was carried out a heartbeat later by Brand, who sank one of his throwing knives deep into the orbit of her left eye.
Rigger neutralized the threat of further ice-maidens waking by having every rope in sight come to life and bind their hands and feet. His brow was furrowed in concentration, his lips pressed tightly together. Despite the heat and humidity of the Sea of Wine, his lips were nearly blue, and his limbs were visibly shaking beneath his black uniform, soaked with icy water.
Sage shouted, “Poppy! Go get Rigger a blanket before he freezes to death!” She ran to Rigger’s side. “We have to get him out of these freezing clothes.”
“We’re all drenched,” said Poppy, who was also shivering. “Why aren’t you telling him to get me a blanket?”
“If Rigger gets sick, the
Freewind’s
all but crippled,” said Sage. “The rest of us are expendable.”
“No one’s expendable,” Mako said. He’d already pulled off his soaked shirt and boots, and his muscular body had shaken off the effects of the cold. “Bring blankets for everyone, Poppy.”
Meanwhile, Jetsam had also gotten over his chill, perhaps because of the exertion of swimming through the air around the now limp sails. He dove down from near the tip of the mainmast to land beside Bigsby. He dropped to his knees and grabbed the fallen dwarf by his cheeks.
“Who are you?” he demanded as he drew his dagger.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Brand shouted, holding up his hands. “It’s okay. She’s with me!”
“Only if she’s a stowaway,” Jetsam said, shaking his head. “We officially have two passengers aboard, and she’s not one of them. And why are we saying
she
? She’s plainly a
he
!” He snatched Bigsby’s platinum locks and shook them before the dwarf’s face.
“I am too a she!” Bigsby screamed, grabbing Jetsam’s sinewy wrist and twisting to no avail. “I’m Princess Innocent Brightmoon!”
“It’s true,” said Brand. “She’s my sister. I’m Prince Steadfast Brightmoon!”
“You’re both mad,” said Jetsam, rubbing Bigsby’s makeup off with his sleeve.
Now it was Mako’s turn to join in the confrontation. He grabbed Brand by the throat and pushed him against the mast. I noticed for the first time that Mako’s fingers were webbed. He pushed his toothy face inches from Brand’s pale blue eyes and snarled, “You’re no prince! You’re nothing but carnival trash! Your looks and charm may have reduced my mother’s wisdom to that of a teenage girl –”
“Hey!” shouted Sage. Poppy had returned with a heavy wool blanket, which Sage draped over Rigger’s skinny shoulders.
Mako continued: “I took care to learn everything there was to know about you once you became our dryman. Before you turned up in Commonground, you traveled the Silver Isles as a member of the Slinger Carnival. You were the show’s knife thrower.”
Sage glanced at the dead ice-maiden who’d tried to take her hostage. “You’ve got to admit he’s good at it.”
“Not so good that he could survive on the income from his act. My sources say his true gifts lay as a pick-pocket.”
Brand gave a surprisingly natural-looking smile for a man on the verge of having his windpipe crushed. “You only know I’m a pick-pocket because it was part of my act. I would always return what I stole. I’m no thief, and I’m not ‘trash’ simply because I traveled with a carnival. I joined them because I was searching for my long lost sister who had been magically transformed into a dwarf. Dwarves frequently seek employment with carnival freak shows. It seemed like a good place to look.”
“I’ll admit I’ve heard stranger stories,” Jetsam said, spitting on his captive’s face as he wiped away the last of the rouge and mascara. “But this can’t be the lost princess. This is Bigsby, the Fishmonger! I recognize him now that he’s not painted like a tart. He’s lived in Commonground since before I was born!”
“No!” Bigsby sobbed. “I’ve always been Princess Innocent! I only appear to be an old, ugly dwarf due to a witch’s curse!”
There was a loud sigh from the hatch. Sorrow’s head was just above deck. “Witches get blamed for everything,” she grumbled. She climbed the rest of the way up the stairs and looked around. Her brow furrowed at the sight of all the semi-nude women bound on the deck. “The missing Skelling women, I presume?” She nudged a yeti with her boot. “That pelt should bring a nice price.”
“We’ve captured their leader, no thanks to you,” said Mako, taking his eyes off Brand, but not his grip. “What was so important you couldn’t help save the ship?”
“Excuse me?” Sorrow said. “It wasn’t my job to fight them. You’re getting paid to protect your passengers. I thought you Wanderers understood contracts.”
“If these ice-maidens had killed us all, I’m sure that you could have waved the contract in their faces and made them understand the error of their ways,” Mako said.
“But they didn’t kill you all, or any of you, as far as I can tell. Anyway, your charge that I did nothing is baseless. Perhaps you failed to notice the seven-foot-tall wooden golem who fought by your side?” She knelt and yanked my sword from the yeti’s skull. “Catch,” she said as she tossed me the blade, and I caught.
She looked around at the sky.