Authors: Scott Lynch
“Ah,” said Jean, “but when a woman has your heart, she doesn’t have poor moods. Only
interesting moods … and
more
interesting moods.”
“Where I was born, obnoxious flatterers were hung out to dry in iron cages.”
“I can see why you ran away. You inspire such flattery that any man who talked to
you at length would have been caged up after—”
“You are
beyond
obnoxious!”
“I need to do something to keep my mind off whatever’s coming—”
“What we just did below wasn’t enough?”
“Well, I suppose we could always go back down and—”
“Alas that the biggest bitch on this ship isn’t even Drakasha or myself, but duty.”
She kissed Jean on the cheek. “You want something to keep yourself busy, you can get
started with preparations for the passage. Get to the for’ard lantern locker and bring
me the alchemical lights.”
“How many?”
“All of them,” she said. “Every last one you can find.”
THE TENTH hour of the evening. Night fell like a cloak over the Ghostwinds; and the
Poison Orchid
, under topsails, stood in to the Parlor Passage gilded in white and amber light.
A hundred alchemical lanterns had been shaken to life and placed around the ship’s
entire hull, a few in the rigging but most beneath the rail, casting rippling facets
of false fire on the dark water just below.
“By the deep six,” called one of the two sailors Drakasha had placed at the sides,
where they cast their lead lines to gauge the amount of water between the ship’s hull
and the sea bottom. Six fathoms; thirty-six feet. The
Orchid
could slip through far shallower straits than that.
Ordinarily, soundings were occasional and one leadsman would suffice to take them.
Now the men, two of her oldest and most experienced, cast their lines and called the
results continually. What’s more, each of them was watched by a small party of … minders,
was the best word Jean could come up with. Sailors who were armed and armored.
Strange precautions had been ordered all over the ship. The small, elite crew who
waited above to work the sails had safety lines lashed around their waists; they would
dangle like pendulums if they fell, but at least they’d probably live. Real fires
were extinguished, smoking strictly forbidden. Drakasha’s children slept in her cabin
with the stern shutters locked and the companionway door guarded. Drakasha herself
had her Elderglass mosaic vest buckled on, and her sabers hung ready in their scabbards.
“A quarter less six,” called a leadsman.
“Fog coming up,” said Jean. He and Locke stood at the starboard rail of the quarterdeck.
Drakasha paced nearby, Mumchance had the wheel, and Delmastro stood by the binnacle
with a small rack of precision timing glasses.
“That’s how it starts,” said Mumchance.
The
Orchid
was entering a mile-wide channel between cliffs that rose to about half the height
of the masts and were surmounted by dark jungle
that rose and faded into the blackness. There were faint sounds of things unseen in
that jungle; screeches, snapping, rustling. The ship’s arcs of lanterns made the waters
around them clear for fifty or sixty feet, and at the edges of that gleaming circle
Jean saw threads of gray mist beginning to curl out of the water.
“And a half five,” came the cry from the starboard leadsman.
“Captain Drakasha.” Utgar stood at the taffrail, log-line pinched between his fingers.
“Four knots, hey.”
“Aye,” said Drakasha. “Four knots, and our stern’s even with the mouth of the passage.
Give me ten minutes, Del.”
Delmastro nodded, flipped one of her glasses over, and kept watch as sand began to
trickle from the upper chamber to the lower. Drakasha moved to the forward quarterdeck
rail.
“Heed this,” she said to the crewfolk working or waiting on deck. “If you start to
feel peculiar, stay away from the rails. If you cannot abide the deck, go below. This
is a chore we must endure, and we’ve come through it before. You
cannot
be harmed if you stay on the ship. Hold fast to that thought.
Do not leave the ship
.”
The mist was rising now, layering upon itself. The shadowy outlines of cliffs and
jungles beyond were swiftly vanishing. Before them was nothing but blackness.
“Ten, Captain,” said Delmastro at last.
“By the mark five,” cried one of the leadsmen.
“Mum, put your helm down.” Drakasha used a stick of charcoal to scrawl a quick note
on a folded parchment. “Two spokes a-lee.”
“Aye, Captain, helm a-lee by two.”
At the sailing master’s slight adjustment to the wheel, the ship leaned to larboard.
Sailors overhead made faint adjustments to sails and rigging acting on instructions
Drakasha had drilled into them before they’d entered the passage.
“Give me twelve minutes, Del.”
“Aye, Captain, twelve it is.”
As those twelve minutes passed, the fog grew thicker, like smoke from a well-fed fire.
It closed on either side, a swirling gray wall that seemed to lock their own light
and sound in a bubble, closing off all hint of the outside world. The creak of the
blocks and rigging, the slap of the water on the hull, the babble of voices—all these
familiar things echoed flatly, and the jungle noises vanished. Still the fog encroached,
until it crossed the ephemeral line of well-lit water created by the lanterns. Visibility
in any direction now died at forty feet.
“Twelve, Captain,” said Delmastro.
“Mum, put up your helm,” said Drakasha, staring at the compass in the binnacle. “Helm
a-weather. Bring us northwest by west.” She shouted to the crewfolk at the waist,
“Make ready to shift yards! Northwest by west, wind to the larboard quarter!”
There were several minutes of activity as the ship came slowly around to its new course
and the crew rebraced the yards. All the while, Jean became more convinced that he
wasn’t imagining the sound-dampening nature of the fog. The noise of their activity
simply died when it hit that shroud. In fact, the only evidence of a world beyond
the mist was the wet, earthy smell of jungle blowing in with the warm breeze across
the quarterdeck.
“By the mark seven,” called a leadsman.
“Twenty-two minutes, Del.”
“Aye,” said Delmastro, turning her glasses like an automaton.
The next twenty-two minutes passed in claustrophobic silence, punctuated only by the
occasional flutter of sail canvas and the shouts of the leadsmen. Tension built as
the minutes crawled by, until—
“Time, Captain.”
“Thanks, Del. Mum, put your helm down. Bring us southwest by west.” She raised her
voice. “Lively, now! Tacks and sheets! To the larboard tack, southwest by west!”
Sails shuddered, and crewfolk ran about swearing and working ropes as the ship heeled
back onto the larboard tack. They spun at the heart of the fog; the jungle-scented
breeze seemed to rotate around them like a boxer dancing around an opponent, until
Jean could feel it against his left cheek.
“Hold steady, Mum,” said Drakasha. “Ezri, fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen, aye.”
“Here it fucking comes,” muttered Mumchance.
“Belay that crap,” said Drakasha. “Only thing truly dangerous out here is us, got
it?”
Jean felt a prickling sensation on the skin of his forehead. He reached up and wiped
away the sweat that was beading there.
“A quarter less five,” called a leadsman.
Jean
, whispered a faint voice.
“What, Orrin?”
“Huh?” Locke was gripping the rail with both hands and barely spared a glance for
Jean.
“What did you want?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Are you—”
Jean Tannen
.
“Oh gods,” said Locke.
“You too?” Jean stared at him. “A voice—”
“Not from the air,” whispered Locke. “More like … you know who. Back in Camorr.”
“Why is it saying my—”
“It’s not,” said Drakasha in a low, urgent voice. “We all hear it talking to us. We
all hear our own names. Hold fast.”
“Crooked Warden, I will fear no darkness for the night is yours,” muttered Locke,
pointing the first two fingers of his left hand into the darkness. The Dagger of the
Thirteenth, a thief’s gesture against evil. “Your night is my cloak, my shield, my
escape from those who hunt to feed the noose. I will fear no evil, for you have made
the night my friend.”
“Bless the Benefactor,” said Jean, squeezing Locke’s left forearm. “Peace and profit
to his children.”
Jean … Estevan … Tannen
.
He
felt
the voice, realizing somehow that the impression of sound was just a trick he played
upon himself, an echo in his ears. He felt its intrusion into his awareness like the
brush of insect legs against his skin. He wiped his forehead again, and realized that
he was sweating profusely, even for the warm night.
Forward, someone started sobbing loudly.
“Twelve,” Jean heard Ezri whispering. “Twelve more minutes.”
The water is cool, Jean Tannen. You … sweat. Your clothes itch. Skin … itch. But the
water is cool
.
Drakasha squared her shoulders and strolled down the quarterdeck steps to the waist.
She found the sobbing crewman, hauled him gently to his feet, and gave him a pat on
the back. “Chins up, Orchids. This isn’t flesh and blood. This isn’t a fight. Stand
fast.”
She sounded bold enough. Jean wondered how many of her crew knew or guessed that she
drugged her children rather than put them through this.
Was it merely Jean’s imagination, or was the fog lightening to starboard? The haze
was no thinner, but the darkness behind it seemed to abate … to acquire a sickly luminescence.
A whispering hiss of water grew into a steady, rhythmic pulse. Waves breaking over
shoals. The black water rippled at the edge of their little circle of light.
“The reef,” muttered Mumchance.
“By the deep four,” called a leadsman.
Something stirred in the fog, the faintest impression of movement. Jean peered at
the swirling gloom, straining to catch it again. He rubbed at his chest, where his
sweat-soaked tunic seemed to irritate the skin beneath.
Come to the water, Jean Tannen. Water so cool. Come. Lose tunic, lose sweat, lose
itch. Bring … the woman. Bring her with you to the water. Come
.
“Gods,” whispered Locke, “whatever’s out there knows my real name.”
“Mine as well,” said Jean.
“I mean, it’s not calling me ‘Locke.’ It knows my
real
name.”
“Oh. Shit.”
Jean stared down at the black water and heard the sound of it breaking over the unseen
reef. It couldn’t be cool … it had to be as warm as everything else in this damn place.
But the sound … the sound of those waves was not so unpleasant. He listened, entranced
for several seconds, then raised his head lethargically and stared into the fog.
Something was there, for the briefest instant—a dark shape visible through the curtains
of mist. Man-sized. Tall, thin, and motionless. Waiting there, atop the reef.
Jean shuddered violently, and the shape disappeared. He blinked as though waking from
a daydream. The fog was now as dark and solid as ever, the imagined light gone, the
hissing rush of water over shoals no longer so pleasing to his ears. Sweat ran in
itching streams down his neck and arms, and he welcomed the distraction, scratching
himself furiously.
“By the … by the, ah, deep four … and a quarter four …,” murmured a leadsman.
“Time,” said Ezri, seeming to come out of a daze of her own. “Time, time!”
“Surely not,” muttered Locke. “That wasn’t … but a few minutes.”
“I looked down and the sands were run out. I don’t know when it happened.” She raised
her voice urgently. “Captain! Time!”
“Rouse up, rouse up!” Drakasha bellowed as though the ship were under attack. “Tacks
and sheets! Come west by north! Wind to the larboard quarter, brace the yards!”
“West by north, aye,” said Mumchance.
“I don’t understand,” said Ezri, staring at her timing glasses. Jean saw that her
blue tunic was soaked with sweat, her hair was matted, and her face was slick. “I
was watching the glasses. It was like … I just blinked, and … all the time was gone.”
The deck was alive with vigorous commotion. Once more the breeze shifted, the fog
swirled around them, and Mumchance settled them onto their new course with precise,
almost delicate shifts of his wheel.
“Gods,” said Ezri. “That one was as bad as I can remember.”
“Never been like that before,” added Mumchance.
“How much longer?” asked Jean, not ashamed to sound anxious.
“That’s our last turn,” said Ezri. “Assuming we didn’t slip south far enough that
we run aground on something in these next few minutes, it’s straight on west by north
all the way to Port Prodigal.”
They slipped on through the dark waters, and gradually the strange sensations on Jean’s
skin ebbed. The fog withdrew, first opening into cleaner darkness before the ship,
and then unraveling behind them. The light from the lanterns seemed to pour back out
into the night, unrestrained, and the reassuring noise of the jungle on either side
of the channel returned.
“By the deep eight,” came a leadsman’s shout.
“That’s the main channel,” said Drakasha, ascending the steps to the quarterdeck once
again. “Well done, everyone.” She turned to look out over the waist. “Take in most
of the lanterns. Leave a few out for navigation, so we don’t surprise anyone coming
into the harbor. Keep the leads going.” She reached out and put her arms on Mumchance
and Ezri, squeezing their shoulders. “I know I said no drinking, but I think we could
all do with a brace.”
Her gaze fell on Locke and Jean. “You two look as though you could use a job. Fetch
up an ale cask and serve it out at the mainmast.” She raised her voice to a shout.
“Half a cup for anyone who wants it.”
As Jean hurried forward with Locke close behind, he was pleased to feel the tension
of a few moments earlier evaporating. Crewfolk were smiling again, chattering away
at one another, even laughing here and there. A few kept to themselves, arms folded
and eyes downcast, but even they seemed relieved. The only odd thing about the scene,
Jean realized, was how assiduously most of them seemed to be trying to keep their
attention focused on the ship and the people around them.