Chapter 10 – Katerina V
Seas roar,
Dragon's bite and breath.
Hulls split, masts break;
Crews left to Death.
I
Jorden clasped the oilskin firmly over the old safari suit Jonathan had given him. The suit was a size bigger than he would have liked and the oilskin was even bigger again. It felt like he was wearing a tent. At least he hadn't been sea-sick for the last few days, although at the moment he felt he would rather be violently ill and safe below decks. He drew a deep breath and walked toward the door, ready to brave the world beyond.
The deck continued to heave beneath Jorden's feet, and the Katerina seemed to list ever more to starboard. Already it was difficult to stand on the moving slope of the deck.
Johnathon had a hand on Jorden's shoulder in support. “Good luck,” he shouted over roar of the violent sea. “If you don't fix this, then you realize that we're sunk for sure when it turns really rough.” He followed that with a laugh that almost sounded real.
Jorden found it difficult to believe that things could be much worse, already the spray threatened to carry him from the deck and the gale howled in the all but empty rigging above. And they had an outrigger that was filling steadily with sea-water. When he first heard the news he assumed that the hull had been ruptured, and that was that, but he had been assured that it was just a matter of a few broken hatches. If he could fix the failed bilge pump, then all was well. Otherwise they were likely sunk.
No pressure.
Drey finished tying off his rope, a rope that they could use as support for the impossible crossing to the flooded outrigger. “Right, lad. We've got the hatches fixed as best we can,” he shouted. “They still leak, but the pump will clear the bilge if you manage to fix it.” He shook his head. “If you can't then we'll have to cut the bastard loose somehow and take our chances into Saljid.”
That was a week away, Jorden recalled, and the seas were worsening. “I'll try,” he yelled.
Drey nodded. “I know, lad.” Then he produced a short thin length of rope, and swung it about the outsider's waist. “We'll loop this around the cross-rope in case you slip, and I'll be right behind you. Taf there will help pull you in if you get yourself into any trouble.” The aestri smiled as she stood casually against the rail, wearing little more than usual and apparently oblivious to the chill, wet wind, her nails well fixed to the timber. “We have the shaft clear for you, but it's filling at a good rate and the lads on the hand-pump are a might weary...”
“Come on,” Taf chirped as she leapt out onto the maze of heaving timber that lay between ship to outrigger. “Captain can't sail a sinking ship, and we are slow and heavy in the water, and she turns ever to starboard...”
“All right, Taf,” Jorden grunted. He gazed again to the rugged sea, the swell now easily a dozen metres or more, the waves often mounting the bow of the near sunken outrigger, the superstructure flooded. He stepped from the tilted deck to the narrow walk, his grip firm on the all too thin rope.
The aestri smiled and walked ahead as the swell crashed amongst the open latticework below, the spray stinging Jorden's eyes, the talons of wind tugging at his oilskins. Yet they crossed in safety, waiting for the outrigger's deck to heave skyward and drain of it's wet burden before dashing to the waiting stern-ward hatch.
II
The heavy timber door thudded behind, one of the crew bolting it securely.
The small dim room stank of salt and sweat and lamp-oil. Several broad-shouldered dirge seaman sat panting in their corners, and several more worked the levers of the double action bilge pump that had been parked at the head of the shaft.
Jorden checked that his multi-purpose ship spanner was still hitched on his hip and walked with Drey and Taf to the shaft, falling often toward the ever moving walls. Indeed he was surprised he could walk at all in such weather, and feared he would fall headlong into the dark grave that lay ahead. Fortunately he didn't. Drey went for the ladder and began his descent into the dark, and apparently bottomless shaft, Jorden and Taf following him into the gloom. The pump itself resided in the all but flooded recess, several metres below at the other end of the shaft.
Jorden plunged into the waste deep ink that filled the tiny pump room, a fear of what may reside within ever present, and tried to ignore the steady fall of salty rain that sprayed from the walls of the shaft above. The flimsy walls kept several thousand tons of death at bay, by the looks, and that did not count the waters of the sea beyond the hull.
“She's run by a water-screw at the stern,” Drey told him as he patted the dark cylinder that lay half submerged in the deluge. “That seems to be working the way it should be.” Indeed when Jorden shifted he could see the gears and spinning shaft that provided power to the device. “And that pipe that comes up from the left takes water to the top of the shaft, then out to the hull... only it isn't.”
The pump moaned, the water level rose. Jorden glanced to the other, smaller pipe nearby that kept the shaft as empty as it was and wondered how long those on the hand-pump might endure – they only drained one small fraction of the flooded hull. “Can you stop the drive shaft,” Jorden asked in hope, dreading the answer. There was a ring of bolts around the face of the pump, yet little purpose in revealing the interior of a live, thrashing beast.
Drey nodded easily, then shouted an order up the shaft. There was a distinct thud above the groan of timber and pounding of waves, the shaft rotating twice before grinding noisily to a halt. “Thank heavens for that,” Jordan mumbled then scanned the pump more thoroughly.
His foot rested on the thick pipe that entered through the forward bulkhead, an inlet that passed beneath the half-metre diameter pump, then through the rear of the pump casing below the drive shaft. There was the lever of what he assumed was a butterfly valve there, a lever he kicked closed to shut off the inlet supply. So far, so good. Without that valve, opening the face of the pump would flood the shaft in seconds.
Then he considered possible problems. A blockage perhaps, Jorden considered, yet unless it was in the pump itself they didn't stand a chance. The ring of twelve bolts on the face of the clock-like housing allowed the only way in anyway. He began on those below the waterline.
It was short work, and Drey helped as he could while Taf watched on. There was little room or need for others. After releasing the last of the bolts, Jorden grasped the plate and heaved, hoping against hope that it wasn't stuck. The level of the black and somewhat odd smelling water had risen more than he cared think about since he had begun, the rain from above ever more persistent. Then there was a hiss and a blast of salty spray that rattled the side of the shaft opposite the one which suddenly sprang a serious leak. Jorden listened to Drey curse and tried not to, then heaved again with what strength he could muster, strength that was fed well by the flow of adrenalin.
Then the plate came away with a bang, Jorden falling back with it, only then realizing the bulk of the item, a disk of what appeared to be brass that was easily twice as heavy as anything he could possibly lift. The wet darkness closed around him, air and lamp-light somewhere above. He didn't even have the time to shout.
So that was it, he thought, fated to die in the bowels of a crippled ship in the middle of an unknown sea – a coffin that would soon take him right to the bottom of that sea. He felt the hands of Drey, then a claw he hoped was Taf, and pushed as he could against the disk that had come to rest on his chest. He couldn't even breath water like most drowning people.
The lump of brass moved. Jorden lived. For the moment.
He rose and gasped for breath for several moments in the wet mist that now filled the air-space of the pit, but knew that time was short, the level of water rising steadily. He glanced to Taf who rubbed a strained arm, then to a thumping above as another seaman tried desperately to patch the hole in the shaft wall. The water fell even heavier.
Jorden shook himself and tried to ignore his surrounds. The pump. He had to
fix the stupid pump, and soon, otherwise they'd have to dive to find it. There was an impeller within the dark cylinder, or what was left of one, something that Jorden understood. It was a very simple centrifugal pump, a simple spinning impeller, but it was dead. There was enough left for the outsider to see what it was, and it was cracked into enough pieces for him to know it would never run again.
Even Drey knew enough about machines to know it too, his word quiet and consoling. “Come on up lad, you've done what you can. Even if you knew kadastone you'd never get that tangle together again. We'll have to try and cut it loose and weight the other rig. If we're careful with sail..” He paused and tried to remain hopeful. “Well, we'll have a good bite at it, anyways.”
“A heavy swell from port and we're sunk,” Taf put forth confidently. “It is one thing to survive seas such as these...”
“If we had another impeller,” Jorden interupted. “What if we get one from the other outrigger? They would be the same, right?” Jorden looked to Drey, knowing time was their greatest enemy.
Taf snatched a piece of the brass that Jorden held. “What does it look like,” she said, frowning. “If there is not one in stores then there is not one in the whole of the Domain.” She sniffed the yellow metal.
Jorden recalled the hundreds of crates in the holds near the aestri's hide. “You might be right Taf, but how do you find it amongst all of the other...”
“Just show me what it looks like.” Taf seemed to anger, odd for the normally peaceful aestri.
There was a gleam in her eye that flickered in the lamp-light, her teeth white and moist. “It's probably too heavy,” Jorden told her. “You'd need help.” And Taf growled, a rumble of rage that surprised the outsider, her stare intense. It didn't seem like a good time to argue with her. “A disk, this big, with fins like so.” He reconstructed enough of the device for Taf to see his meaning, then he snatched what remained of the central hub of the impeller from the spline of the drive shaft. “And it has a hole shaped like this in the centre.” He paused and watched the aestri nod thoughtfully. “Take it with you for comparison. There may be other size pumps on the ship.”
She clasped firmly hold of the brass shard and made for the shaft's ladder. “Trust me,” she smiled before lifting her wet form from the pit. “Wait as long as you can. I'll be back with what you need.” She then scuttled up through the falling torrent.
“I hope so, Taf,” Jorden muttered as he watched the water level steadily rise. “For all our sake.”
III
Jorden could still feel the pump housing that now lay in the watery darkness, the battle lost to the gush of moisture above, the recess ever more cramped, but it was well under the surface.
Again Drey suggested their departure, and word came from above that the rig may soon plunge beneath the waves for the last time, even though the captain had now steered them in lee of the worst. But Jorden held his ground for the moment. It wasn't really bravery. He just doubted there was anywhere to go. Fixing the pump was still their best chance.
Fear grew, a fear of death foremost, yet also a fear that Taf may have been lost to the violent sea with their salvation in hand. He feared unnecessarily, of course, for there were few waves that could dislodge the grip of an aestri on rope, though few aestri had been called upon to carry such a burden. They were stronger, of course, than Jorden knew, stronger than their meagre size suggested, and Taf could near lift the brass disk that had taken Jorden below. The impeller was far lighter, though a lot more fragile.
The aestri had actually found the artefact easily amongst the stock that she knew so well, and now she waited for the outrigger to surface from beneath the waves, then a dash for the hatchway, then a knock. A heart thumped in anticipation, the hull diving again toward the depths of the sea-dragon's world. The hatch opened and closed.
Water streamed in from around the door's border, the floor of the room at a hideous angle, the men and dirge within gripping the stays for dear life. Taf puffed and made her way to the shaft.
When the aestri splashed her way back into the recess, Jorden snatched the impeller with one hand and her with the other, kissing Taf without even thinking about it, Drey shaking his head and looking away. She struggled momentarily, fearful of what the crew might think.
Indeed Drey did think it an odd thing for the lad to do, the stress of the moment, no doubt, but he was not about to speak ill of him in their current situation. Instead he just grunted to gain Jorden's attention. “Can you do it, lad?” Jorden glanced to the impeller, then in the direction of the submerged pump, and nodded, even daring a smile of success. “Then we'll do what we can for you.” The water now came high on their chests, higher on Taf's than any.
Drey moved to the base of the shaft, shouting up to his men and dirge. “Come on ya sluggards, pump like ya lives depend on it.”
Lives did.
The impeller was fitted easily, even working blind, and the plate was soon salvaged and put in place, with the aid of Taf and Drey, yet the bolts were another matter, Taf diving into the gloom to fit most. In time that they didn't have, Jordan held his breath and lowered himself to tighten the last. Then he dragged the valve open and rose smiling. He held a fist aloft in victory.
The sea of hell had failed.
“Well, let's get it running before we end up underwater,” Jorden shouted to the first mate. Drey winked and took to the ladder, climbing the shaft to give the order. The man and aestri waited below, ever hopeful that nothing went wrong. There could have been scraps of metal in the inlet, Jorden thought, shards that could tear the new impeller to pieces. He swore. He should have checked. It was too late now. He crossed his fingers and hoped for the best.
The pump whirred to life, the pipe thudding against the timber above as the water surged within. It sounded good to Jorden. No clash of metal from pieces that might have been left in the pump...
Then the weakened wall of the shaft at last released the cold waters it had previously withheld.
IV
Finding oneself in total darkness under the best part of several metres of water at the bottom of a narrow and partially obstructed shaft was not an experience anyone planned on, indeed it was something likely to bring certain panic. Jorden did just that.
There had been a snap, then a roar, then the oceans of wherever descended on him, striking like a runaway freight-train. He thumped heavily against the wall, his breath expelled, and he knew that this time he was truly dead. He told himself to keep calm. Sure, you can't see, you can't breath, and you haven't the slightest idea which is up or where in the writhing darkness the way out is hiding, but you're still alive and there are a dozen hardy seaman that can easily dive the dozen metres they need to get to you. Maybe.
Jorden gave in and panicked, clawing at the nearest wall.
For Taf it wasn't completely dark, just dim and fuzzy, the way to safety visible as a insubstantial trapezoid of light above. She waited for the buffeting to stop, rubbing her ribs where they had been thrust firmly into the body of the pump, then wondered on her next move. To leave the pit was not a problem, yet she could not leave alone. Somewhere in the misty gloom was a dear friend in need – a young man of poor eyesight and a dislike of the sea.
She searched the lower corners and worked her way up to the ceiling that extended behind the shaft opening. It was there that Taf found a wild dark beast that flailed its limbs madly against the roof.
The aestri held her breath and waited for the movement to ease at least a little.
V
There was a blur, a blur with a reddish tinge that was marred with mobile shadows and flickering red points.
Jorden turned to the brightest patch of red haze and coughed. At first it seemed an insignificant action, the rapid expulsion of air from his lungs. Air! He struggled to sit, only to be forced to lay, five sharp points on the skin of his bare chest. He moaned and coughed again.
“Just rest,” the first shadow said to hi
m. It had a voice like an angel that reminded him of Taf. He smiled. “There's nothing to fear now,” it added. The cradle rocked gently beneath, the points of discomfort withdrawing from his flesh.
“You've done well, Jorden,” came another voice. It was female also, not quite as smooth as the first, yet still comforting. “I'm not sure how I can ever repay you.” A shadow moved toward a patch of red blur. There was a moment of what could be called silence, yet it was far from that. “But I feel that I must at least neglect to inform the port authorities of your bondage. Or perhaps you were lost at sea.”
Jorden didn't see the sarisan captain smile, nor did much of what she said to him make sense at that very moment. He was tired and wanted to sleep...
When Jorden Miles woke again, the red blur had departed, only the ship's infirmary remained.
It was bathed in a grey light issuing from a nearby window, the two small lamps giving a little additional illumination. The Katerina continued to roll and pitch, and the glazing of the window was wet with spray, and the pea-green seas rose like mountains beyond, yet the floor seemed as level as it could ever be. Jorden assumed the pump had worked and they were safe, though safe was a term he used with a certain amount of caution.
There was an aestri curled at the base of the cot, Jorden's leg numb beneath her weight, and a man rummaged in nearby cabinets that tinkled like a thousand tiny bells. Johnathon turned to him and smiled. “A little more coherent this morning I hope,” the doctor said cheerfully. “You seemed somewhat vague last night.”
Taf stirred at his feet. “The last thing I remember is drowning,” Jorden mumbled as he forced himself to a sitting position. He felt worse for the effort, the room swaying about him.
The aestri whined and rolled from the cot, thumping heavily to the floor. She grunted. “Taf here pulled you out,” Johnathon told him. “Been with you ever since.”
Jorden smiled. “I don't know where we'd be without her. If Taf hadn't found that impeller...”
Dark slitted eyes rolled toward him as the she sat up and stretched. “That was easy,” she yawned. “There was a crate full of things like that one, probably more than one crate. It was much harder dragging you through that little passage.”
Jorden shook his head. “I don't remember much of it,” he admitted. “I was so scared I think I fainted.”
“It took long enough. I had to wait ages for you to stop thrashing about...”
VI
At least the Katerina was again on an even keel and sailing true, even as the weather worsened. In the last days of the voyage the sea became a series of rugged, and rapidly moving ranges. Mountains that needed to be traversed. From the troughs they towered above, at times the bow of the Katerina pitching well below their surface.
Jorden avoided the deck completely, preferring to stay in the warm, dry, but somewhat noisy, bowels of the Katerina with Taf. He was sure that the much higher quarters of the crew and the captain would be preferable should the vessel sink, but that was a line of thought he wish to repress. What hope would there be in a lifeboat anyway.
He left the running of the ship to those that knew it best, tried to forget about what was going on outside, and hoped that nothing further would go wrong.
Especially something mechanical.
Taf's bed was warm. It moved more than Jorden would have liked, yet it seemed to him more comfortable than Taf's sailcloth hammock. She swayed to and fro with the Katerina, again writing poetry in one of her confiscated ship's log books. “What's something that rhymes with rain,” she asked casually, sucking the end of her quill.
Jorden shrugged. “Pain,” he suggested. “Brain, perhaps.” As in the headache he was currently suffering. It was difficult when one knew nothing of the theme of the work.
“Sails will raise as seamen strain,” the aestri mumbled. “Ich!”
“At least I don't have the Council to worry about,” Jorden mused, “but that doesn't help me get home. At least everyone back home should have given up worrying about me and written me off as dead by now.” Although that wasn't very likely. He wasn't sure how long he had been gone, and he also wasn't sure that time worked quite the same in the Domain as it did at home. It made it hard to know how long he had been away from home.
Taf glanced up from the page. “There are Kaedith in Saljid that you can see, ones who don't care for the Council. You'll need to find work first though. Spells like that would be expensive, I think.” Actually she hoped that they were very expensive, and she doubted there were many that could perform such magic.
“What about you? Got a job waiting for you in Saljid?” He knew there would not be any form of welfare, especially for aestri.
“Aestri don't work, silly.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I have the Katerina to watch.”
Jorden nodded vaguely. He had asked Johnathon about the exact purpose of the ship's aestri, but the doctor had just laughed and given an odd tale of how such creatures were put within the Domain to scatter the wits of the sane. Evasiveness seemed a common character trait in the Domain of Hura Ghiana.
“What about Midnight,” Jorden went on to say. “Does she have a ship as well?”
“She sailed with the Katerina when it was new. Now she has a wharf. You'll like her,” Taf promised. “She's beautiful, and clever as well, and the best ratter in Saljid.” And sometimes a little mean, Taf thought to herself.
Taf was known to say some strange things, and that was one of the more strange. “Ratter?” Jorden frowned.
The aestri stared in return. “She catches rats in the warehouse lofts during the darkness. Midnight is best.” Her gaze flicked back to her book. “What rhymes with...”
Jorden had now known Taf for weeks now. He was not sure of the exact number of weeks, but it seemed like an eternity. However long it was, it had certainly been long enough. The change of subject suggested she didn't really want to talk about Midnight. She was holding something back, perhaps. It was the same reaction he received when asking about her purpose on the ship. He shrugged. Everyone needed their secrets, yet he couldn't help feeling he was missing something totally fundamental. Or maybe there was no real purpose. Maybe she really was just some wandering vagrant that like to ride ships from port to port. He couldn't imagine why, but then there didn't seem like a lot of career options for the lowly aestri.
He forgot about the matter until the evening meal.
Johnathon had invited them both to his quarters earlier in the day, yet the journey to the upper levels involved a brief crossing of the open deck. Jorden was in no mood for that. The movement of the Katerina was quite severe without adding to it, and the higher quarters of the doctor seemed to sway even more. He did not wish to get wet, either.
Taf was gone for quite some time before the meal. It always seemed to take forever for her to collect the evening's meat. It was always red-meat now, the last fish had been served when they had sailed near the Castle Isles. The Islands themselves had not been sighted, but the fish certainly were, and the diet was more varied for a day. Now there was only the tough red meat.
It wasn't bad, Jorden considered, but there were only so many ways to prepare raw meat. At least it seemed fresher than that of Johnathon's meals. It shouldn't have been that way, of course, and Jorden wondered where Taf found her supplies. It didn't taste preserved, though it was difficult to tell, and there was a possibility that it came from the ship's cargo rather than the invariably poorer stores.
Again Taf returned to her hide with the meat in a small cloth bag. She smiled toward Jorden, and he offered the same in return, her bounty emptied to the surface of her table. Again the meat was already cut into tiny pieces, though there was less than usual, Taf snatching the knife from her hip to trim a few that were larger than the rest. “It won't be long,” she said. “I'm sorry that I seemed to take forever. I know that you are hungry.” She came close momentarily.
Jorden noticed the sweat that beaded on her brow, although the hold ha
d remained quite cool for the last few days, and she still puffed her breath. “I can wait,” he returned. “You don't have to rush around and find me food. You're a friend, not a servant. I can go to the crew's mess if I'm hungry, and I can bring enough for you.” He had done so in the past.
“I know,” she puffed further. “But their food is not the best, and it is ruined by cooking.” Taf bundled the meat together, adding her selection of her usual fluids and garnishing.
She served it all to Jorden, refusing to keep any for herself. “I've already eaten my fill on the way,” she lied.
Jorden shook his head as he accepted the serving. He knew she wasn't telling him the truth. There could not be an endless supply of the meat. “I don't believe a word of it, Taf,” he said as he began on the meal.
It was less enjoyable than usual, and it was actually quite warm. “What I would really like to know is where the hell you steal this from,” Jorden went on to say. “I know that it isn't ship stores.”
Taf was hungry, but she remained in a playful mood. Her evening had been exhilarating even though it wasn't exceptionally fruitful. She smiled. “I'm not sure a man would wish to know, Jorden, but you can trust me that it is fresh.” The aestri chuckled.
The man snorted. The meal was warm enough to be freshly killed and Jorden wondered which of the crew had been sacrificed tonight. But it was the small piece of brown fur that brought all the shards of fact together, and Jorden wondered how he could have been so stupid as to have not realized the truth weeks ago.
He didn't want to throw up – he hated throwing up – and there was little point in trying to empty your gut of meals you had been eating for weeks. It was something he had no control of, however.
Taf saw it coming and understood. He had been ill quite often as the seas became more hostile. She snatched the remaining meal from his grasp and passed a bag that Jorden could use. He tried to thank her, yet was soon too busy filling the bag. She held to his shoulder and said nothing. Taf knew that she shouldn't have teased, yet she also knew that her friend would learn of the truth soon enough. Of course the aestri had not realized he would take the truth quite so badly. The common men were such funny things.
And while she waited for her dearest friend to calm his belly, Taf ate the last of the rat meat it had taken all evening to catch.
VII
“That is what an aestri does,” Taf said when Jorden again felt like he might live into the following day. “And we do it well. One aestri can easily keep the rats aboard ship to only a few, although I try to keep numbers higher than Captain would like. They expect us to eat our fill and then starve.”
Jorden nodded. That sounded about right, the lowest of classes could hardly expect more from their masters. “You should have told me it was rat meat before. It was the shock of seeing that hair that made me sick. I imagined that you were serving up marinated crew-members for a while.”
“I thought about telling you,” Taf admitted, “but then you would not have eaten it. You did not like raw meat very much, and I doubt that you would have liked raw rat at all.” That wasn't really a problem though. “I thought you might not like me if you knew that I ate rat.”
The thought of her chewing upon a live fish had been difficult enough. “Maybe, but the rest of you more than makes up for something as minor as what you eat.”
Taf smiled and hugged her friend. There was more to her secret, of course, but he had learned enough for now. The rest could wait.
Jorden's mind was preoccupied for the final days into Saljid anyway, the room moved far too much and the air was far too wet. He did not know that much of the rigging had been stripped from the foremast by the cyclonic winds that roared in from the eight radial, or south to a man of Tasmania, and he did not set eye upon the hideous seas of the final days. If he would have glimpsed the rocky teeth that lined the opening of the protective sea-walls of Saljid, then he would not have worried, he would simply have consigned himself again to Death.
But Jorden slept through the most treacherous final hours of the voyage.