-5-
Coliasus
Whik leaned against the splintered rail of the ship. The waves rolled up and down like lazy caterpillars on their trudge to the next leaf. It was all lies. He wouldn't grow old with Sonora, or explore the northern mountains like Thomas had done. He wouldn't hike with his father or ever spot a rock eater. He had been on the ship for four days now, but he would rather have stayed in the water.
Whik had no memory of being pulled from the sea. He slept through the first night on the ship, after he fell from the cliff and landed in the ocean. Jasper, one of the ship's deckhands, was the first person Whik saw after he woke. When Jasper told him that they were already a day's sail from Hemonstalia, Whik screamed, telling him to turn the ship back, that his brother and mother and friend were waiting for him on the cliff.
"We can't turn back," Jasper told him. "Not ever."
Jasper said that the captain of the Royal Guard had saved Whik. Geoffrey Marg was the man's name, though Whik had not yet spoken to him. Jasper said that when Marg picked up him from the sea, a red woman breathed air into him by pressing her lips to his, and putting her fingers on his chest. "She had the hair of an evening sun," Jasper told Whik. "And she brought you back with her lips. A real woman." Whik wasn't sure if that meant he had kissed a girl for the first time, but he didn't want to ask. Jasper said that Whik must be important if the captain of the Royal Fleet saved him, but Whik told Jasper that he wasn't important and that Geoffrey Marg had made a mistake.
Jasper's skin was a yellow that Whik had never seen before, but there were many new colors on Geoffrey Marg's ship. Most of the crew had pale skin dotted with freckles. Some were dark though, like Sonora was, while others were the color of Jasper: like sand, maybe, or his mother's chicken soup. Some men were the size of a horse and Whik wondered how they didn't sink the ship. There were women in the crew, too. Three of them looked like sisters. They had the same round faces, the same muscular arms and long, thick braids, the same torn shirts. They never stopped moving. One would climb up the mast and tug at the sail, while another would shout from the cabin, telling the other to do this, then do that.
Jasper was taller than all of them, with thick eyebrows and a pointed nose, though he only had one hand. Whik couldn't help staring at it, but it made him feel less sad, that Jasper had lost something too. Jasper's voice was thick as honey and sometimes his words blended together and Whik had no idea what he was saying. Jasper told him that it was because they came from different places and that to him, Whik's voice was strange as well.
On the second day, a storm hit. Whik had never seen bodies thrown around the inside of a cabin before, but when the swells hit the ship and water rushed in the room, people couldn't hold on. Whik had crouched in one of the chests, pulling his knees around him and bracing himself on the boards. When a wave pushed the ship a certain way, it felt like his stomach was dropping out from underneath him. He sat like that for hours until he fell asleep from exhaustion.
On the third, the clouds left them. Jasper sat in the crow's nest for most of the day with a pole up to his eye, staring out to sea. Whik sat alone. He had lost his cape when he fell from the cliff, so he tried to make a new one out of bandages he found in the ship's hold. They fell apart though, and now Whik had nothing to remind him of his mother. Near sundown, Jasper came to Whik with dice in his hand. They played a game into the night hours, where they would try to match symbols on each die. Jasper won most of the games in the beginning, but Whik was quick to learn, and soon he won some of his own. Whik asked about the woman who kissed him, but Jasper didn't know much. He said her name was Charlotte and that she was a healer from Hemonstalia.
Whik saw her that night, replacing bandages and making wounded soldiers drink from cloudy water. She caught him staring once, and smiled, but Whik just walked away. He didn't need any friends. Someone would take them from him.
On the fourth day, Whik didn't want to play dice with Jasper. He stared at the waves for what felt like hours. He would pick at the railing, dislodging splinters and throwing them into the sea. Sometimes a splinter would prick Whik's finger, but he didn't mind. It hurt, but it was better than feeling sad.Now all he had was the splintered rail and rolling waves.
A hand touched his shoulder. The silhouette of a bearded man hovered over him. The individual hairs on the man's head were almost translucent against the washed out halo of the sun. He held a mug in his hand, dark liquid dripped down his chin.
"How you doin', lad?"
Whik hadn't spoken to Geoffrey Marg for the four days they had been sailing. His mother would have told him that was impolite, but his mother wasn't here.Whik shrugged his shoulders and even that motion sent pain down his back. "I'm fine." Flashes of the images he's seen days before filled his eyelids when he closed them, so he tried not to blink.
"Care for some coffee? It's imported from the southern lands. It's strong, but it'll help with the weariness."
Whik grabbed the mug from his hands, took a sip, swirled the thick drink in his mouth, and spat the contents onto the deck. "That's poison," Whik said as he ran his teeth over his tongue, purging his mouth of the nasty taste, of burnt syrup and almonds.
Marg took the mug in his hands. "The taste isn't suited for everyone. It's a new start for you, lad. Pain can be good for ya. Life is cruel." Marg coughed and took a slugged from his drink. "Once you accept that, then you can appreciate the better moments."
Had this man ever talked to a child before? Surely his own mother would have said the right things. Whik wished he hadn't fought so hard when she tried to hug him. "I'm not a little kid anymore," he would tell her, slamming his fist on the table like he had seen his father do so many times. She would laugh and run after him with her arms wide open. He fell into another daze, watched the waves hit the vessel.
"It will get better," Marg told him. "You know what you're standing on right now? You're on the Daelus Mae, the king's royal ship. You think he lets just anyone aboard his ship?"
Whik stared at the man. "The king is dead."
Marg shrugged. "A lot of people have died. Throughout the centuries. Kings and crones alike. But few have had the chance to sail this ship. Do you know who Daelus Mae was?"
Whik kicked the foot rail of the vessel. "No."
Marg tossed the dregs of his coffee over the rail and knelt down beside the boy. "She's was a mythical siren. On full moons she would rise up through the sea and dance for the sailors. They'd be so enticed that they'd beg their captain to sail towards her. They said she'd swallowed a hundred ships, or led them into a whirling pool, or into the tentacles of a kraken."
Whik tapped his thumb on the railing. "Why would you name a ship after a monster?"
Marg laughed and knelt down beside him. "The world is full of monsters. We could have named her after anything, but nothing instills fear in your foes like the name of a monster. A beautiful monster at that."
"What about the other ships?"
"They have names as well." Marg pointed to the fleet surrounding them. "There's Centos following our stern, Harpy's Hollow on our aft, and Hydra to our portside. There are a dozen others that follow them and even more behind those. That one there is Royal Wrath, named after the Sentinels."
"Will the Larks follow us? Will they have ships like this one?"
"The Keeping books say the Larks fear water, so it's doubtful, for now at least. You're safe here. You're a part of the most feared fleet in all the oceans."
The fleet didn't seem so fearful to Whik. The decks were full of weeping women and children who had lost their parents. He even saw a knight sitting with his sword to his side, wounds festering. "Who fears us?"
"A lot of people fear us. The barbarians in their wooden dinghies won't come close to our shores. Even the mages of Kolos write about our fleet, with their capes and wands." Marg stood. "Ah, this reminds me, stay right here."
He disappeared into the cabin. Whik didn't care where he was going. He was tired of the stale bread that Marg and his crew fed him. When Marg returned, a torn red cape hung from his hand. For a moment Whik's shoulders felt light and unburdened. He grabbed the cape at once and felt it with his fingers. The golden emblem was still stitched on, his initials in the center.
Marg motioned for Whik to turn. "In all that turmoil and through all those damned waves, someone stuck by ya." Marg fastened the cape around Whik's neck, but Whik didn't feel like a hero, not anymore.
Marg drew his hands back and cleared his throat. "You can thank her." He pointed to the red-haired woman who had kissed Whik back to life. She sat beside a heap of crates with a leather-bound book in her hand. "Her name is Charlotte and she helped me revive you when I pulled you from the ocean. I bet you she could sew up that hole in your cape."
"I can sew it myself," Whik said. But I can't. He didn't need her to sew it. Her hair looked silly anyway, but her skin looked soft and she smiled nice enough, and he was without needle and thread. He reached back with both hands and gave the cape a light tug, ensuring it was fastened securely. "But tell her thanks. And I suppose she could sew it if she wanted to."
"You'll have to ask her yourself."
"My mother made it for me. I've had it since I was three years old. She didn't make one for my brother either. And she said the thread on the emblem had real gold in it. It stands for Whik Winfield. That's my name."
"It is a fine cape, Whik Winfield, and it sounds like your mother was a fine woman."
Whik didn't like the way he said that. Was? Would she never be a fine woman again? "She still is."
Geoffrey Marg didn't say anything to that. When he nodded, the fat rolls below his chin pushed against his chest. This man was taller than Jasper. He was even taller than most of the men who ran about the ship.
When Marg turned to leave, Whik tugged at the man's sleeve and said, "What's she reading?" He pointed at Charlotte, who turned a book's page.
"It's a history book," Marg told him, crouching down next to Whik like older people do. "It's called Coliasus. I gave it to her."
"You own books?"
"Fewer than most, I suspect, but more than a sailor should. The one that Charlotte has was one of the first books I ever read."
"What's it about?"
"It's the history of the Calacami people, how they went from freedom to slavery."
Whik stirred. "My friend is one of them. Her name is Sonora, but she's back at home." He suddenly remembered again, how she was taken from the forest. That happened from time to time. Just yesterday he woke up and thought it was all a night terror. Sometimes he didn't even have to sleep for it to happen. "The Larks took her. But she wasn't a slave. Not ever."
Marg nodded."Lucky for your friend, she was born free. Hemonstalia had no slaves and anyone who made the journey to Hemonstalia was owned by no one. But elsewhere, in the far away southern islands, things are different. One day the city of Maulth decided that people from Kolos were strange. Dangerous. So they put them in chains."
"That's all in that book?"
Marg nodded.
"Is there magic in it too? Or gods?"
"Both."
Whik's face lit up, but then he remembered how Sonora always spoke of the gods. "How can Charlotte read that, when everything is ruined? When people are dead?"
Marg breathed in and out, then placed his hands on his hips. "Some people lost everything in the invasion, like you, like some of my crew. But some people didn't have anything left to lose. That kind of change, the kind that tears everything apart, can make you think the world is ending, or just beginning again."
None of that made any sense to Whik. How could she push her nose into a book when his mother was still missing? When Thomas was probably standing on the cliff, waving his hands in the air, waiting for Whik to come back.
"The island we're going to, Sebolt, it will be good. For everyone."
Whik could feel Marg staring at him. Sebolt sounded like a stupid place. It probably had thin trees and few rivers. The sunrises were likely nothing compared to the ones he watched at home. "I would have rather stayed in Hemonstalia with my family."
"Maybe so. You were just about dead yourself. You're lucky to be alive."
Lucky to be alive? He was lucky to escape unpunished for using his slingshot in Marque's market. He was lucky to find the five-toed frog that he gave to Sonora. There was nothing lucky about losing his family.
The vessel swayed from side to side in the swells. The afternoon rain had since vanished, but droplets stuck to the planks of the vessel like leaches. The flapping mainsail expanded and contracted as it struggled to catch the wind, creating melodic booming sounds.
All Whik could do was stare at the rising and falling swells. "Why did they hurt everyone?"
Marg took a deep breath and shouted something to a deckhand, then turned back to Whik. "In some places, far away from Hemonstalia, there are just bad people. There's no talkin' to those kinds of people, there's no reasoning with them. They're the evil kind."
"But they didn't look like people. I mean, they didn't look like Sonora and I. And they didn't look like Thomas or father and mother or even the old woman who counts the crows." Whik strained his neck and looked up at Marg. "I suppose they looked a bit like you. Just because of your belly and hairy face, but you don't have the weird nose that they did."
Marg laughed. "To be honest with ya, lad, I haven't talked to someone with less than a dozen years under their belt since I raised my daughter." Whik didn't understand. He wasn't even wearing a belt. "I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not quite sure what I'm saying. There's nothin' left for you back there. This is a new start for all of us. Sebolt is a different place. Lots of adventure there. Lots of things to take your mind off of those evil bastards."
Whik didn't jerk his head up at the foul language. Besides, Thomas had made sure he heard his fair share of swearing. "Have you been there before? To Sebolt?"
"Not in many, many years. Hemonstalia cut ties with the island. The people there didn't think that the Calacami should be free. The Seboltians traded with the southern islands, buying boatloads of slaves. Hemonstalia didn't like that." Whik looked back to the sea. "I know what it's like to feel alone when there are people all around you. I've lost someone dear to me as well, during the Murders of the Seven. And here I go rambling on to a youngster."
"I'm not a youngster," Whik corrected, his face pushed into a frown. "I'm nine years old and once I killed a leafbug with nothing but my slingshot. I've seen as much pain as any man. More probably."
"I'll be damned. Killed a leafbug with a slingshot. Apologies, young lord."
A flicker of color darted past the railing. A tiny creature, suspended in midair, hovered above the ship's rails. Its beak narrowed to the size of a needle at its tip, gaining in breadth before vanishing under a set of turquoise feathers. The quills swirled beneath inset eyes. The creature would have looked frozen in space if not for the rapid fluttering of minuscule wings creating no more breeze than a soft whisper. Whik stared at it. It looked like the creature was staring right back. When the ship hit a swell, Whik stumbled for balance and the bird whizzed away.
"Would you look at that," Marg said. "I haven't heard word of a Padalon sighting in years."
There was a rustling above. Jasper's head stuck out over the crow's nest. "Captain, land ho!"
A hazy landmass came into focus on the horizon. Whik squinted and placed his feet on the baseboard of the railing. In the distance the fog hung over the water like a veil, giving way to a rocky coastline that grew in size with each boost from the mainsail. Deformed trees hung over the cliff like solemn gargoyles, their branches swooping in and out of the rock formations. At least there are trees. Booms and smacks echoed throughout the crevices in the cliffs as the waves slammed against them.
Birds circled above. Palm trees hung over the water. Marg investigated the discovery through a wooden pole, like the one Jasper looked through all day.
"Is that it?" Whik asked, pointing. Deckhands scurried about the vessel and shouted commands that Whik didn't understand.
"Looks to have the dangerous rocks they warned me about. Followed the compass markings... had consistent wind... four day journey give or take. It's been far too long."
The rainbow of haze that hung over the cliff lifted as the ship neared. Maybe Sebolt wasn't so bad. Perhaps it had thicker forests with tons of branches to climb, and rivers with wondrous waterfalls, and beautiful sunrises of purples and reds and yellows. It could have countless animals that Whik had never even dreamed of and maybe they were all waiting for him to play.
Marg pushed himself off of the railing. "Land ho fellas," he shouted. "We're home."