Chapter 32
“She’s been under for years, by the looks of her,” said Smoke.
We were on the quarterdeck with our rum and our lime, watching the Andomiehr as she bobbed in the glassy waters. It was night, but there were no moons or stars because of the Dreadsky. I was glad for the oil lamps, else we’d be in the pitch.
“Why was she out here in the Silence?” asked Echo quietly.
The quartermaster grunted and leaned over the rail, cupping his mug in both hands.
“The Rhi’Ahr seem to cross the Sheets and the Silence far easier than we do,” he muttered.
“Maybe they have a chaser of their own,” I said.
“Maybe they do, Blue,” he said. “Maybe they do.”
“My mother used to say that they are an elemental people,” I said. “That they can speak to wind and waves the way we speak to each other.”
“Bollocks,” said Smoke. “Why would they need battlecruisers and cannons if they could just ask the waves to sink an enemy ship?”
“Perhaps it’s more complicated than that,” said Echo.
“Maybe the waves say ‘No, I’m sorry, Mr. Rhi’Ahr captain. I think I’ll natter about a bit over in Braithe. Flood their capital and surge their canals for a day or two if it’s all the same to you. But ask me next week and I’ll sink ’em hard.’”
Echo laughed softly, and it carried over the waters.
We hung over the rail, the three of us, and it felt good to be here with them, even in the middle of the Silence.
This crew had awakened something inside of me, something I never believed needed filling.
I was a crab without a shell, now, susceptible and soft.
I stared into my cup, seeing nothing in its syrupy darkness.
“What’s that?” asked Echo, and we all looked to see a glow bobbing beneath the waters.
“Suns, not another dragon eel,” I said.
“Oh, I do hope it is,” said Smoke. “We could use some more steaks.”
“Is it the chimeric?” asked Echo.
“The captain wants me to go to the ship at first light, to see if I can find what was calling the chase,” I said as I watched the glow bob and pulse just beneath the surface. “But that thing’s not making my scars dance.”
“Oh, look! There’s another!”
Two glows, now. Then, three.
“Why, they’re jellyheads!” said Smoke. “Be careful when you head over, Blue. Some can be deadly.”
“One sting can kill,” said Echo.
A shiver raced along my spine.
“Can’t believe we found that old wreck in the middle of the Silence like this,” said Smoke, and he furrowed his brow. “She’s been gone for years.”
“A ship.” I gripped my cup hard. “Please tell me Buck didn’t lose his leg and Kit lose her life all because Thanavar was looking for another fogging ship.”
Smoke rolled along the rail, propped on his elbow to face me.
“Well, Blue, before you tempt our dear Touchstone to kill you yet again, I suggest you go ask.”
I glared at him before tossing back the last of my grog and pushing the cup into his chest.
I marched toward the hatch and didn’t look back.
It was dark inside the ship, with no stars or moons to guide me, but I moved by candlelight and memory alone. For the second time in as many nights, I approached the captain’s cabin, only to hear Fahr’s voice on the other side of the door, so I paused, hesitant to enter, unwilling to knock.
“I should have known,” Fahr said. “I can never trust you to do what you say.”
“And what would you have me do, Dev? She will not live as half, and if I do not right this soon, she will not live at all.”
“Then, Forge forbid, she does not live!”
There was wine. I could tell.
“Forgive him, Kirianae. He’s speaking out of turn.”
Kirianae. That was the name of the RuneTree from Moonforth’s book.
“I’m not, and she knows it. She’s better than you give her credit for.”
Oh fog, it was beginning to make sense.
“Let it go, Gav. Let her go, and by all that is holy, let yourself go as well.”
“The Dreadwall—”
“Will fall with or without you. Let. It. Go.”
And it hit me like a swinging boom.
The Touchstone was Kirianae, the RuneTree, Goddess Lindurithain.
Not just made from her timber but her. No wonder she was dying.
No wonder Thanavar risked our lives to scavenge her planks.
She was the key to repairing the Dreadwall, to restoring the balance to magik itself.
This wasn’t about just getting to the Cloudgate with the ironmages.
This was about taking the Touchstone home.
“It’s not fair to Blue,” said Fahr.
“I know,” said the captain. “I will not ask.”
My mind was reeling. I didn’t dare breathe.
“But you’re going to have to,” said Fahr. “You can’t do this on your own.”
“You know I can,” said Thanavar. “Besides, if the Court proves worthy, they may be more help than we think. And if they do not—”
“—then thousands die.”
“Thousands will die regardless, if I fail.”
“You always do this. Always devise plans so that there is no other way but yours.”
“I did not begin this, Dev.”
“Oh, but you will end it. Suns, don’t I know. You’ve told me that for years.”
“Dev—”
“You shouldn’t have brought me back!”
There was a long pause.
“I am not sorry, kel’yion.”
“It was Shroud magik, Gav. You of all people should know not to play with that. Now, I’m marked. Who knows when the debt comes due?”
And there was silence for a very long time.
“You should have let me go. Why can’t you let things go?”
It had to be hard to be someone’s kel’yion. Someone you’d die for, but harder still, someone for whom you’d live. But what of the reverse? What manner of love would it take to let someone go?
“You’re convinced she can slew the Dread?” said Fahr.
“Rhi’Ahr ships have before, and the Touchstone is far superior to any of them.”
“Just don’t kill us all, please. You just brought me back. Let me live a day or two, please?”
“Devanhan…”
I could hear boots, and I ducked into the shadow of the companionway, praying he didn’t swing a candle or lantern as he went.
He didn’t. I watched him slide the door closed and stride off. I wondered where he would go now that the ironmages had the wardroom.
I waited until he was surely gone before I slipped back to my berth in the galley. My questions, my lessons, could wait.
I didn’t sleep a wink that night, but at least I didn’t dream.
There were more jellyheads in the morning, and I had a bad feeling about them.
Last night, there were three. Now, there were more than thirty, and they bobbed just under the surface of the glassy green sea.
They were odd—bilious and bulging—with spikes along one edge that looked like teeth or jagged bone.
I thought them as unnerving as the leviathaur but less likely to win us a meal.
Altercation. Alteration. Abomination. Dread, said the Touchstone.
Suns, she was poetic. It was hard to think of them as simple jellyheads after that.
The captain came with me on the jolly boat to the wreck of the Andomiehr.
I was impressed at how the boatwrights had made her somewhat stable as she bobbed lifelessly on the surface of this quiet sea.
Even sunken ships would float for a time once raised, but I knew we had hours before the water-heavy timbers would take her down again.
The holes in her hull were wide and many, and it was clear that not all were made by cannon fire.
There were also no barnacles, and I thought that odd.
All ships were covered in barnacles. Still, she was water-bloated, slimy, and green, and I had to hold my breath as we rowed through her open hold.
We docked just under the second gundeck, open to the yellow haze that was the sky, and a seamage helped us up to the main.
She was exposed like a rib cage, an oaken skeleton with shallow pools of slimy green on what remained of the decks, with vines of kelp hanging between them.
It was sad. This was all that was left of a fine four-master when the ocean worked to consume her.
Two crewmen and I followed Thanavar as he walked along the main, slowly and carefully because of the slippery, rotting planks. His hands were speaking, and I knew he was looking for RuneTree wood. He paused at the wheel, touched one of its grips, glanced at me.
“This?”
I looked at my scars, bright with chimeric even under the gloves.
“Aye,” I said, and he nodded to a seamage behind.
“Bring the whole wheel aboard,” he said. “And take care that you get it all. See the darker strains of wood here and here? Leave none behind. Is that understood, Mr. Tripp?”
“Aye, sir.”
We spent the better part of the morning touring what was left of the ship.
Her canvas sails were tattered to threads, and almost all of the shrouds and lines were eaten clean away.
There were decks with missing floors and holes so large we had to climb between them in order to move aft.
I felt like a scavenger crab, picking the bones of a watery carcass, and it was hard to remember that this was about the Touchstone and the chimeric-laden wood that would prolong her remarkable life.
We were at the door to the great cabin when Carpenter Ben Kobe hailed us down.
“There’s something not right with these jellyheads,” he said. “They’re attaching themselves to the boats.”
“That is not normal,” said Thanavar.
“No, sir, it ain’t. But what’s more, sir, is when we pry ’em off, there’s a hole where they was stuck.”
“Are they attaching themselves to the Touchstone herself, Mr. Kobe?”
“Aye, sir. Mr. Buck is run ragged with repairs.”
“We shall be done soon.”
Kobe disappeared down the rotting hall.
The captain pushed the door to the great cabin, and it cracked off in his hands. He grunted, set it aside, and stepped carefully into the room. The moment my boots crossed the threshold, my runescars began to dance.
“Captain,” I said.
He looked around the cabin, but there was little left. Any papers would have been consumed by the sea long ago, any mementos swept away or buried in silt. But there was still a trunk under the gallery windows, and my heart skipped when I realized what it contained.