Kaspar waved to Karbara to precede him. With a hesitation, then a shrug, the slight, nervous man mounted the gangplank. Kaspar wondered if the ambush might happen below decks. He kept his hand loosely on the hilt of his belt-knife.
They reached the main deck to find that a rotund man of middle years was directing the offloading of the cargo. He glanced over at Karbara, then Kaspar. “You the buyer?” he asked without preamble.
Kaspar said, “Perhaps. Tell me about your ship, Captain…?”
“Berganda,” he said, curtly. “She’s less than ten years old. I traded in two older ships because she’s faster and holds almost as much as the other two combined.” He looked around. “She’s fifty feet at the waterline—what we call a bilander. You can see we’ve got a big lanteen yard on the mainmast.” He pointed to the large boom that nearly touched the stern. “You get a lot of canvas open to the wind in a reach, and while she’s a bit of a pig in a following wind, if the breeze is spanking, you can reef the lanteen and run straight ahead. Otherwise it saves you the need for a mizzen sail. Anyway, my wife is eager for me to stay home and I’ve got a brother who has a wagon business, so while I know nothing about being a teamster, I do know cargo. She’s fit, and if you know ships, you know at three hundred pieces of gold, she’s a bargain.” He pointed to Karbara, “But you pay him his fee.”
“I’ll pay his fee,” said Kaspar. “And I’ll give you five hundred, but you’ve got to sail her one more time.”
“Where?”
“Across the Blue Sea, to the northern continent.”
“Damn me, but that’s a long voyage. I don’t even know how to get there. All I’ve ever heard is you’ve got to sail out from the City of the Serpent River to the northeast. I guess we could sail along the north coast and head up from where the continent turns south…that’s nearly a year.”
“No,” said Kaspar. “Once we clear Horsehead Cape, then it’s forty-five days north by west, then due west for two weeks.”
“Sail the other way?” said the Captain. “Very well. Always wanted to see that part of the world. I’ll take three hundred now, and two hundred when we get back. How many passengers?”
“Two. Myself and my manservant.”
“When do you want to leave?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Very well, sir,” said Captain Berganda. “You’ve bought yourself a ship. I call her the Western Princess. Care to rename her?”
Kaspar smiled. “No, Princess will do. How long to provision and crew?”
“Crew’s no problem. My lads were grumbling about being out of work after today. They’ll be happy to come aboard for another long cruise. Provisions? Give me two days. You say fifty-nine days or so? Let’s say three months in case the winds are contrary. We should be ready to sail on the morning tide in three days’ time.”
Kaspar reached into his tunic and took out a small purse. “Here’s one hundred pieces of gold to seal the bargain. I’ll have the other two hundred for you this afternoon, and two hundred more when we reach Opardum.”
“Opardum, you say?” The Captain grinned. “That the name of the land we’re bound for?”
“The city. The nation is called Olasko.”
“Sounds exotic and I look forward to seeing it.” He took the gold then extended his hand and they shook to bind the deal.
Kaspar turned to Karbara and said, “I have your gold back at the alehouse. Come along.”
Karbara hesitated. “Sir, I have another appointment shortly that I must not be late for. I will come by later today for my payment.”
Kaspar clamped down on the thin man’s shoulder and said, “Come now, this will only take a few minutes, and I am certain you’re anxious to be paid.”
The little man tried to twist out from under Kaspar’s grasp and failed.
“What is the problem?” asked Kaspar. “You act as if you don’t wish to return to the alehouse with me. Is something amiss?”
With a look bordering on panic, Karbara said, “No, sir, honestly, nothing. I just need to meet with another gentleman. It is most urgent.”
“I insist,” said Kaspar, digging in his thumb. The slight man looked as if he might faint, but he nodded and came along. “You’re not worried are you, that I might return to the alehouse and discover someone’s broken into my room and stolen my chest of treasure, are you?” Kaspar felt a sense of disquiet growing inside and knew that he needed to remove the ring soon.
At this Karbara turned to run, but Kaspar tripped him. “When we get back to the alehouse, if anything of mine is missing, I’ll personally turn you over to the local constables, do you understand?”
Karbara began to weep, but Kaspar ignored his tears and half-led, half-dragged him along. They reached the alehouse and found the owner standing in the center of the room, his face drawn and his eyes wide. “You!” he said to Kaspar as they entered. “You’d better get up there!”
“Why?”
“Two men came in here as brazen as can be and walked up the stairs without so much as a by-your-leave. I heard noises and got halfway up the stairs to investigate when I heard screams…” He shook his head frantically. “Well, I’ve sailed and fought and traveled…but, man, I’ve heard nothing like that in forty years. I don’t know what happened to your manservant, but something dreadful has occurred and you’d best see to it. I’ve already sent a street boy for the constables.”
Kaspar felt fear sweeping over him and knew he had only minutes to keep the ring on before the madness came. He pulled Karbara upstairs and entered his room. The Talnoy stood in the corner where he had left him, the chest still at his feet, but otherwise the room looked like an abattoir. Blood splattered the walls and floors, soaking completely through the blankets on the bed. Two men, or what was left of them, were piled on the floor. It was hard to recognize much that was human about them, as it appeared they had been methodically pulled apart, limb from limb. Two heads lay nearby, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
Karbara gave a whimper and fainted.
Kaspar shook his head. He slipped off the ring, and felt the approaching madness vanish. He took a deep breath. He would wait as long as possible before slipping it back on. He hoped the constables in this city were as slow to respond as they were in other places, for he needed an hour or more to pass before he could put the ring on again.
An hour passed, and Karbara stirred. Kaspar looked around and decided it was better to have the little would-be thief unconscious for a while longer, so he knelt and delivered a swift blow behind the man’s ear. Karbara flopped once and fell silent.
Kaspar heard voices from below, and knew that even if the constables were slow in coming, the news of some problem in the room were spreading through the common room, and shortly would be the topic of street gossip in the neighborhood.
Taking a deep breath, Kaspar put the ring back on and instantly felt a small discomfort. He knew he must make straight to the ship and get the Talnoy out of sight. He went to the Talnoy and put his hand on its shoulder. “Manservant!” The creature’s appearance changed instantly. “Pick up the chest and follow me. Say nothing to anyone unless I command it.”
The creature bent over and shouldered the small chest effortlessly. He didn’t have a spot of blood on him, and Kaspar realized the manservant disguise was an illusion, not a costume that could be splattered with gore. Unless he ordered it.
Kaspar turned and walked out of the room. At the bottom of the stairs, a few local men had gathered and were whispering as Kaspar and the Talnoy descended. Kaspar took out ten gold coins and handed them to the alehouse owner. “My friend passed out. Take a deep breath before you go in there. This is for the trouble of cleaning up and for telling the constables that I’ve left by the south gate if they ask, instead of the west gate. Sorry for the trouble, but they were thieves.”
The owner took the coins without a word.
Kaspar led the Talnoy down to the docks and boarded the Western Princess. Captain Berganda said,
“I thought I wouldn’t see you for another couple of days.”
“Change of plans. We’re staying aboard, and if anyone asks, you’ve never seen us.”
“Understood,” said the large man. “You’re the owner.”
“Where’s our cabin?”
“Well, I haven’t moved out of the captain’s cabin yet…”
“Stay there. Is there another?”
“Small one near mine. I’ll have a boy show you.” He shouted for a cabin boy and when the youngster appeared, he instructed him to take Kaspar and the Talnoy to the cabin.
Kaspar told the boy that he’d eat in the cabin tonight, and as soon as the door closed, he pulled the ring off. Kaspar felt anxious and didn’t know if it had been the ring or his concern about it, or worry he might be apprehended before he reached the docks. Unless the constables in this city were rigorous beyond his experience of such local officials, his roundabout route to the docks would have them seeking him through the south or western gates.
Kaspar sat on the lower bunk. There was another above him, but he made the Talnoy stand in the corner, next to the chest. Kaspar then settled in for two long, boring days of waiting until they departed Sulth.
No mention of the bloodshed at the alehouse reached Kaspar before they departed. If the captain or the crew had any concerns about his reasons for hiding in the cabin, they kept them to themselves. Finally, on the third morning, they got underway.
Kaspar waited until they were clear of the harbor and came up on deck. Captain Berganda said, “You’re the owner, but once we’ve weighed anchor, I’m master.”
“Understood,” said Kaspar with a nod.
“If your course doesn’t set us sailing off the edge of the world or into some monster’s maw, we should be seeing your homeland in three months or less.”
“If the gods want us to,” said Kaspar with an ironic note.
“I always make an offering before leaving,” said Berganda. “I don’t know if it does any good to have those priests praying for a safe voyage, but it can’t hurt.”
“No,” said Kaspar, “Prayer can’t hurt. Who knows, they might even listen now and again, right?”
“Oh, they listen all the time,” said the seaman. “And they answer prayers. It’s just that most often the answer is ‘no.’”
Kaspar nodded, and couldn’t find a reason to disagree.
He looked at the distant shore as they sailed south by southwest down the Bay of Sulth. It would be a long, and he hoped uneventful, voyage.
Kaspar watched the sea, the choppy waves sending spindrift dancing in the late afternoon sunlight. They had put forty-five days between the ship and Novindus. Kaspar had never felt any affection for the sea, but he had been aboard many ships voyaging from city to city as ruler of Olasko.
The Western Princess was a well-run little ship, and the crew knew their tasks. There was none of the iron discipline found on military ships, rather it had more of a family feel. These men had sailed with their captain for years, some of them for their entire adult lives.
Kaspar had fallen into a routine, mostly out of boredom, that began each day with his exercising on the deck. He would draw his sword and go through a vigorous workout, at first to the amusement of the crew, then to silent approval as his skills were shown. He would strip to his trousers and swing his blade for an hour, ignoring the weather unless it was blowing so fiercely he couldn’t stand on deck. Then he would douse himself with a bucket of sea water, which was as close to a bath as he was going to get until they reached land.
Now they were on the westward leg. Kaspar stood quietly, thinking, letting his eyes rest on the constant surge of the sea. He had pondered his next move, for Kalkin was right about Talwin Hawkins. Though it was nearly a year since the battle of Opardum, Tal was likely to draw his sword and start carving Kaspar up before he could get out three words. Kaspar had an idea of what he was going to do, but he hadn’t worked out the details yet.
“Captain!” came a shout from the lookout above.
“What is it?” shouted the captain.
“I don’t know…something…off to starboard.”
Kaspar had been on the port rail, so he crossed the ship. In the distance an enormous shimmering circle hung in the air.
“What in the name of the gods?” muttered a seaman, while others made protective signs.
The hair on the back of Kaspar’s neck stood up. He didn’t know if it was the few minutes spent on Kosridi, the time he had spent with the Talnoy, or just an intuitive moment, but he knew this was a rend in space, a rift as Kalkin had called it.
Suddenly water started pouring from the circle into the sea, brackish, dark, and stinking of sulfur as the wind carried its reek toward the ship. “Come to port!” shouted the Captain. “I don’t know what that thing is, but we’re showing it our stern!”
Sailors jumped to obey, while Kaspar watched in mute fascination as water from that lightless world poured into the Blue Sea. Where it struck the sea, the water roiled and sputtered, throwing up steam and smoke, as flickers of energy danced along the foamy edges. Then abruptly a head appeared in the circle, a monster of that ocean’s deep unlike any mythical sea monster or real danger on Midkemia. It was black, and the head looked as if it was armored, sunlight gleaming off its hide. To Kaspar it appeared to be some sort of giant eel, with amber eyes that glowed in the lowering sun. The head had a crest of sweptback spikes as if to protect it from even larger predators—if that was remotely possible. Kaspar could hardly believe the size of the thing. It was already thirty feet out of the rift and more of it was coming, and it was getting bigger at the girth, so not even half of the creature was through. It could swallow this ship in three or four bites!
“Gods preserve us!” shouted the lookout.
The creature’s fins came through, and Kaspar reckoned it must be over a hundred feet long! Men began calling out the names of gods and begging for mercy, as the creature was now looking at them and attempting to come through the rift faster.
Then abruptly the rift vanished, and a shock of wind was accompanied by the sound of distant thunder. Severed in two, the creature hung in mid-air, its eyes glazing over. It thrashed as it fell, spraying black-red blood everywhere. Then it plunged into the sea below, vanishing beneath the foam.
Suddenly it was as if the incident had only been imagined, for any sign of the event had gone, the creature vanishing below the waves, and the empty sky showing no signs of the rift.
Kaspar looked around. Ashen-faced sailors muttered prayers and clung to lines and rails, until the Captain’s voice shouted for them to be about their duties.
Kaspar glanced at Captain Berganda, and their eyes locked across the gulf between them. For an instant the Captain’s gaze seemed accusing, as if he sensed somehow that this terrible vision was linked to Kaspar being aboard the ship. Then he turned his attention to his ship and the moment was lost.
Kaspar looked around and knew that by the time they reached Olasko, the crew would be arguing over what it was they had seen, and the tale would become another bit of seaman’s lore.
But Kaspar knew that what he had seen had been no vision. And he knew what it heralded. He heard a voice in his mind. He didn’t know if it was his own recognition of what he had seen, or Kalkin whispering one last warning into his ear, but in his mind the words formed, “Time is short.”
SEVENTEEN
HOME
The lookout shouted.
“Land ho!” he cried, as Kaspar and Captain Berganda stood on the quarterdeck.
“Just where you said we’d be, and on the very day, too,” said the Captain.
“I got my instructions from a very high source,” said Kaspar, trying to find humor wherever he could. Since seeing the alien sea creature, he knew two of Kalkin’s warnings to be true: the Talnoy was a magnet for the rifts and those on the other side would dominate this world swiftly. No matter what else occurred, he had to warn those in a position to do something about it. He had t
o find the Conclave of Shadows, even if it meant his death.
Not a selfless man by nature, Kaspar had come to realize that if those creatures invaded Midkemia, no one would survive, no matter how high born, where they hid, or what their skill with weapons. Eventually all would be slaughtered, either in the war, or as entertainment for those heartless beings. So his survival became secondary to those he cared about, even if there were only a handful. He found it odd there were so few of them: his sister, Natalia, and Jojanna and her son Jorgen, and in an odd way, the families of the men who had died on the ill-fated expedition that had begun all this. But even without them, it seemed impossible to consider standing idly by and watching the world of his birth be destroyed.
Kaspar shouted to the lookout. “What do you see?”
“Islands! Hundreds of ’em from the look of it.”
“Turn north by northwest, Captain, and that’ll put us on a tack for home,” said Kaspar.
They sailed all day and by dawn the next day saw coastal shipping sailing close to land. Kaspar had already worked out his strategy for getting ashore and finding Talwin Hawkins. He had spent no time with any member of the criminal element of Opardum, but he had hanged enough of them, listened to confessions under torture, and read enough reports by the City Watch to have a few ideas of how to contact the man he assumed was the new master of Olasko.
By midday, they saw the city of Opardum rising against the escarpment behind the citadel. “Impressive,” said Captain Berganda. “Tell me, Kaspar. How many ships leave from here bound to my city?”
With a grin, Kaspar said, “None.”
Berganda fixed Kaspar with a narrow eye. “Before I tell the lads they’re stranded and they chuck you overboard, owner or not, I assume you have a plan as to how we’re getting home?”
“Yes,” said Kaspar, his eyes now captivated by the rapidly-approaching city. “Keep the ship. Sell it again when you get back to Sulth. I just needed the passage home and it’s worth the price.”
“Well, then,” said Berganda, with a laugh, “you’re the finest man I’ve ever met and I’m proud to say I worked for you.” He shook Kaspar’s hand. “I think I’ll take that gold you gave me and load up on rare items to sell at home. Who knows? If I make enough profit from this, maybe I’ll get my brother-in-law to sell his caravan business and he’ll come work for me!’”