Chapter 22 Days Like This #2
“I’ll need some of that, then,” said Fahr, and he stretched out an arm. “Helps in the healing, right, Doc?”
“Helps with the pain, most definitely,” said the faun.
Rum would not be helpful for a patient who was on the mend.
Fahr took a swig next and tried to pass it back to me. My heart ached as I took it.
“Never mind,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me anything. We can just sit here and drink.”
“No,” he said. “Stories are made for days like this.”
I told myself that the rum eased the tightening of my throat.
“Of course, it all begins with one thing,” Fahr said.
“War,” I said.
“Want,” Fahr corrected. “Yes, there’s always been war between the helms, and Gav has some fascinating elderscripts if you’re keen on learning. But there’s always been only one object of their fighting.”
“Here’s to chimeric,” said Smoke. “The source of all evils.”
Naturally, he drank to that.
“So, the chimeric is on the Cloudgate, or Lindurithain, or the Island InBetween,” I said. Suns, it had so many names. It was hard to keep them straight. “And that’s where the Rhi’Ahr are mining it.”
“Correct,” said Echo.
“But no one knows where it is, because it travels,” I said.
“Correct again,” said Echo.
“Both Oversea and Nethersea used to post flagships on either side of the Channel,” said Fahr. “They’d also escort missions of trade or defend against aggressive forays, and so on. On both sides of the equatorus, they knew where the Cloudgate was at all times.”
“Thanavar said it disappears.”
“Are you telling the story, Blue?” asked Smoke. I scowled at him.
“It became unstable after the Abolition, but since the loss of the RuneTree, it collapses without notice. Ships can be crushed as the Dreadwall sweeps back.”
“Forge,” I said. “So, where does the Nil’hellyn come in?”
“Ten years ago, the last Priestlord arrived at my father’s palace in a stolen Rhi’Ahr ship,” he said. “He had a story and…a proposition.”
Thanavar. He was that bold. Only eighteen at the time.
“He told us of the Cloudgate, how five Rhi’Ahr ships had begun to mine the chimeric for their king but that it ate its way out of all crates and chests. But they noticed that the RuneTree could conduct it with no problem, so, being warriors and not devout, they cut it down.”
He paused, marshalling his thoughts, working for air.
“From those planks, they fashioned chests, trunks, masts, railings, and wheels for their ships, and with that wood, channeling chimeric in its most powerful form, they would be unstoppable.”
I passed the bottle back to Fahr. He drank deeply until it was gone, dropped it in the sand next to the cot.
“And the proposition?” I asked.
“He would sail for Oversea, close the gaps in the Dreadwall, and hunt any Rhi’Ahr ship that crossed into our helm.”
“Wait!”
I sat up too quickly, the rum making a rush for my head.
“The Touchstone was one of those ships.” It wasn’t a question.
“She was,” said Fahr.
“And the Nil’hellyn?”
“Also the Marelethan, the Andomiehr, and…” He glanced at me.
“The Endorathil,” I breathed.
My heart sank into my boots. One day, I would say her name without horror. One day, I’d watch her sink beneath the waves.
I marshalled my spine.
“So, how did the Stolen Prince of Oversea land on her decks?”
He grinned and laid his head back in the makeshift pillow.
“I wasn’t stolen, remember? I jumped.”
“You fell,” said Smoke. “I saved you.”
I almost choked on the rum.
“You were in the palace with him?”
“Indeed I was,” said Smoke. “He tried to jump but failed miserably. I had to catch him in a flawless Kinestorum…”
“Down, down, down,” said Fahr, still grinning.
“It was a calculated, carefully timed jump. From a palace parapet, chased by ol’ Bracey and six soldiers, whilst carrying a moaning twelve-year-old prince.”
“You stole him?” I gasped.
“I was young and provoked,” said Smoke. “And the prince paid well.”
“And I’ve been paying ever since,” said Fahr.
“Gads, that’s true.” He raised a new bottle. “Even the noblest of swabs can be bought for the right price, and I wasn’t near noble.”
“Wait,” I said again. My head was throbbing from the rum and the heat. “You chose to sail with your father’s hired privateer but let everyone think you were stolen?”
“I didn’t let anyone think anything,” he said. “But my father couldn’t admit I’d run away. Court whispers caught fire, and soon, the entire helm believed I’d been stolen by the enemy, thus fueling a very justified war.”
“And the Letter of Marque?”
“To keep me safe while I sailed with a man that the Navy viewed as an enemy.”
I nodded slowly as puzzle pieces fell into place. I looked out to the bay, where the bones of the Nil’hellyn floated, sharp against the suns.
Sister.
“So, why the Nil’hellyn?” I asked. “Why is she being stripped for the Touchstone?”
“RuneTree wood,” said Fahr. “For years, Rhi’Ahr ships sailed through gaps with wood stolen from the RuneTree. Thanavar has been hunting them down, one by one, stripping them clean and adding their boards to the Touchstone.”
“She’s almost all Tree now,” said Echo. “That’s why you can hear her.”
No wonder the Touchstone was renegade. No wonder the Navy wanted her sunk. Her planks were gleaming with RuneTree wood. Sacred. Powerful. Magik.
“Somehow, the Nil’hellyn ended up as a Bilgetown deck,” said Fahr. “As far as we know, there are only three that we haven’t been able to catch. The Marelethan, because she’s fast. The Andomiehr, because she’s lost…”
“And the Endorathil,” I said, “because she’s strong.”
No one said anything to that.
Deep calls to deep, Thanavar had said a lifetime ago, as the Cloudgate now calls to you.
I remembered the plank in the waters, after the Dawn Watch sank. How it kept coming for me as if drawn. Chimeric was drawn to chimeric, and now chimeric was drawn to me. This was why the Touchstone found me. This was why I could hear her voice. It made sense, now. It was beginning to make sense.
He was taking me to the Cloudgate. Somehow, someway, I was going home.
We sat for a long time then, Echo and Smoke quietly playing, me thinking loudly as usual.
I watched the boys on the beach, racing to and fro after their corkanut.
I watched the Nil’hellyn, now almost bare, her hull a skeleton stripped of flesh.
I watched the Touchstone rocking gently in the cove, safe and alive and loved by a dangerous man.
“So,” I said finally. “How did you…”
But Fahr was gone, his eyes closed. I stared hard for the rising and falling of his bandaged chest.
“Later, Blue,” said Smoke. “There’s only so much berth for stories on a day like this.”
“Care for a go?” asked Echo, and he waved his long fingers across the board.
With a deep breath, I reached for a shell.