016 – Titan

***

The overcast sky made the night incredibly dark. The pirate crew slept below deck in an alcoholic stupor. The night favored theft. No opportunity this good could come again for a long time. Although I would have preferred more time to plan and make ready my escape, the situation did not allow it. Rapid action and improvisation would carry me through.

The first thing was to get from the Fleuron to the Double Daggers. It would not be as simple as when the pirates boarded the other ship and the two vessels floated side by side. Now the Double Daggers trailed thirty meters behind the Fleuron, drawn by a long tow cable. Jumping was impossible, swimming nearly so. The dinghy would transport me to the other ship. Although it would be hard rowing for one person, the Double Daggers would more or less come to me. Once it came near, one of the pirates’ grapnel lines would get me aboard.

The second thing was to incapacitate the pirates on the captured ship. They would fight me three to one. They had sharp axes and I had a wooden stick. The odds were bad, but no one ever said that counter-piracy would be easy. Strythe the minion had years of brutal training. I had to hope that his skills would carry me to victory.

The passing night left me no time to prepare traps and tricks, as I had against the trolls at the power station, or for stealing supplies. Speed was key.

Usually two men would lower the dinghy into the water. A short crane extended over the edge of the ship with mounts for block and tackle. By myself, I simply dropped the boat into the waves with a splash. The impact unavoidably made a loud noise. I had to hope that no one inside noticed the sound. From there, I slid down a line into the boat and cut it free.

The wind drove the Fleuron past me. My little boat slowly began to move toward the aft of the ship. And the Double Daggers approached. I worked the oars to stay close to the ships.

“You blasted traitor!” Malisent hissed. She leaned over the gunwale and pointed at me accusingly with her fan. “How dare you leave without me.”

“So long. It’s been fun.” I waved up at her.

“Why didn’t you tell me before trying to escape?”

“You seemed happy enough drinking with the crew and sharing the captain’s cabin. I’m sure you’ll adapt to pirate life in no time.”

“Don’t jest with me, disciple. I’ll flog you for this treachery.”

As I rowed the boat in the dark, Captain Slezeanor appeared on deck holding a lantern in one hand. The rain dampened his velvet coat and frilled sleeves; his hat sagged heavy with water.

“So. This is what you were up to! After accepting my gracious hospitality, you repay me by stealing my property and slipping away in the middle of the night. I fully expected some form of deception from you, Master Strythe. You have a cunning nature, and we schemers can always recognize a kindred spirit… But I never thought you would be so wicked as to abandon your fair companion.”

“You can have her! She’s all yours,” I shouted.

I needed to get to the other ship. A swordsman’s prowess with a blade meant nothing on the open sea. As long as I could out-sail Slezeanor, outfighting him wouldn’t be an issue.

“Leaving your woman in the hands of the Peerless Rake! You either think nothing of her honor or nothing of my abilities as a seducer. Either way, it’s an insult that cannot stand.” Slezeanor whipped out his sword. It flashed blue in the darkness.

Some very twisted logic must have lead this fellow to decide Malisent was ‘my woman.’ We had a cover story about her being my teacher. She made me do awful drills. She treated me like garbage. And she spent the whole trip relaxing in the nice, comfortable cabin while I slept in the hold with the mice and smelly pirates. Maybe our teacher-student relationship wasn’t dramatic enough for someone as theatrical as the captain, and so he dreamed up a story more to his tastes.

“This is where we part company, Slezeanor. I’m taking the Daggers,” Malisent declared.

“So, you choose to follow your wicked master rather accept my favors. So be it. Optimum Acceleration!”

The two swordsmen clashed on the deck of the Fleuron. Their swords rang out like bells. The low angle and ship’s hull blocked my view of the fight, but at times they moved close enough the edge for me to get a glimpse of their battle. Slezeanor’s sword left glowing ribbons of pale blue light with each stroke. The blade cut through anything it touched, snapping lines and slicing into the wooden rails. He moved with frightening speed. Judging by his previous explanation, he must have favored a balance between the projection and enhancement methods. He used a projection technique to make his blade impossibly sharp and enhancements to increase his speed and reflexes to superhuman levels.

The captain pushed Malisent back across the weather deck, leaving a trail of chaos behind them. She managed to block his rapid attacks but countered with few of her own. Sparks erupted from the edge of her sword with every parry. Her own style looked less impressive when matched with the captain’s flashy maneuvers than it had when employed on trolls and beasts. She retreated with every step.

Their fight no longer concerned me. I wanted to escape both of them, pirates and cultists alike. The dinghy floated past the Fleuron’s stern. I tried to guide it towards the towline running between the two.

“Disciple. Move!” Malisent yelled. She stood at the edge of the transom. Her dress now whipped around her in tatters, the skirts sliced up by the captain’s blade. She leapt over the edge.

I scrambled out of the way just as she touched down on the dinghy. The boat see-sawed from the impact, raising the stern and me out of the water and flooding the bow.

“You crazy person. You’ll sink us both.”

“Keep rowing, knave.” She pointed her sword at me. Its damaged blade looked like the edge of an old saw. Malisent must have used some projection technique to strengthen the sword, otherwise it could not have withstood the captain’s sword at all.

I rowed toward the Double Daggers. Half of my escape failed, because the crazy witch still followed me, but the other half had a good chance of succeeding.

The captain stood glowering at us from transom. For a moment, I worried he might jump in after us to continue the fight. Malisent looked up at him, and, without speaking, sliced through the thick tow cable with a single stroke. It snapped in twain.

The Double Daggers escaped from her captor and sailed free once more.

***

Onboard the stolen ship, we quickly found the first mate, Yixigo, and his two sailors. I interceded on his behalf when Malisent moved to cut them to pieces. I convinced her it would slow down the captain if he had to stop to rescue his crewmen, so we let the three jump down to the dinghy and row away.

Malisent’s duel with Slezeanor had wrecked half the ship’s rigging. He carelessly cut through the shrouds and stays and sails. Now the crew would have to make repairs before they could set sail, for fear of pulling down the masts. That gave us some time to ready our own ship and put some distance between us.

The heavy clouds obscured the moonlight. The foul weather and darkness concealed anything more than five meters away. We kept our lanterns covered so that the lookouts on the Fleuron could not keep track of our position.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“More or less. Wind and sails work the same now as they did in my time.”

My two uncles often dragged me along with them on sailing trips. We once went on a long family vacation from the metropolis to the western islands. I had learned the basics of sailing and navigation over three months at sea. Being a moody teenager stuck on a ship with a bunch of old men had been torture at the time, but now I was glad for it.

This sailing trip was quite a bit different than that pleasure cruise. The Double Daggers lacked conveniences and safety features. Modern people used thick hemp ropes for riggings and linen sailcloth. They also waterproofed their ships with oakum and pine tar, which I never wanted to smell again after the fire at the power station. Sailing in this era was hard, dirty work.

Managing a one-masted cutter was easier than a larger ship. While being towed, the Daggers had kept her sails furled, so we had to set them and changed course windward.

“We’re going to outrace them sailing downwind. The Daggers is a faster, sleeker ship. The pirates just lightened her load and weighed down the Fleuron with stolen cargo. So we have an advantage in a dead run.”

“Which direction is the wind blowing?” Malisent asked.

“No clue. Can’t see a thing. I hope it’s not toward the shore.”

“This is the best plan you could come up with?”

“On short notice.”

We sailed wing on wing. The ship rocked and swayed in the gusty winds. Steering was almost pointless because we could not see to the end of the bowsprit or anything beyond. Once everything was set in place, we had nothing else to do but wait and let the wind do its work.

The sun rose invisibly behind the thick wall of clouds. It existed as a hazy zone of light in the eastern sky. The sky was pale gray and the sea the color of iron. Water slicked the deck of the Daggers and dripped from the mainsail’s boom. Far behind us, the Fleuron’s tiny sails poked up over the edge of the horizon. The pirate crew had worked through the night—and through their hangovers—to repair the ship. They pursued us across the rolling sea.

“Where are we going?” Malisent asked.

“There’s no way to gauge our exact direction in this weather. But it looks to be to the south south east. That’s directly toward the west coast of the peninsula. So we’re going right where we want to be.”

“Yes. If where you want to be is the bottom of the sea. You’re taking us out into the deeper waters of the gulf, away from the shore. This is where the sea monsters dwell.”

“Oh. Right. Sea monsters. I’d forgotten about them.” The giant turtle that lived in the Spitpoison River had been the size of a dump truck. I did not want to imagine how large monsters could get out here in the open water. “Monsters that huge can’t be very common. They’d need to range over vast hunting areas. We probably won’t even see one.”

“You better hope so. It’s a long swim to shore.”

“Maybe going into deep waters will scare off the pirates.”

I knew that would not happen. Captain Slezeanor the Peerless Rake lived for thrilling adventures. This chase would be too exciting for him to forfeit. He’d follow us right into the jaws of danger.

Taking stock of out supplies revealed the pirates had taken almost everything of value. Only a few casks of food remained, enough for several days. The voyage would not be longer than that if all went well; and if things went poorly, supplies wouldn’t make any difference.

During the boarding attack, the Fleuron bumped into the hull and loosened some of the boards. Now salt water oozed through the cracks and filtered down to the bottom of the hold. The ship had no mechanical pumps and no crew to bail water by hand. It would slowly flood the ship, if not repaired or docked.

We needed to get to Sandgrave before one of multiple bad things caught up to us.

***

A crisp wind blew across Brimwater Gulf. Although not in the frigid zone, the southern shore of the continent received cold winds blowing off the south pole. Rare storms brought snowfall to the Sandgrave Peninsula, and cold rains were common. The climate here never reached the freezing temperatures of the far northern shore, but it was much cooler than at home in the metropolis, where every day was mild and sunny.

Cold winds and wet clothing sapped the heat from me. It would have been miserable weather, but a small bit of mana warmed my chilly hands and feet. A mage could endure any conditions, hot or cold, as long as they could cycle their mana. The damp weather felt almost refreshing.

The Double Daggers raced across the gulf. The Fleuron gave chase. We had a slight advantage in a lighter breeze and put distance between ourselves and the pirates. They flew better in a stiff wind and gained on us. As the weather shifted through the day, the race favored one of us or the other, and the ultimate victor of our race remained unclear. If we could just keep them away until reaching the shores of the peninsula, the game would be ours.

“Strythe! Look to the forward bow,” Malisent shouted to me from the rudder wheel.

I trudged across the wet deck and squinted into the mist. A huge, dark thing broached the water. From a distance it resembled a sand bar. Malisent turned the rudder to steer us away from the object in our path.

“What is that thing?”

“He’s the titan Og-Sfalensok. He’s a sea god who lives in the center of the gulf.”

“I had assumed from your legend that gods looked like people. And that they lived far away on the moon.”

“Not of all them. There are titans too, and local gods and spirits of all kinds.”

I figured that people used these names by convention, and that they did not employ an exact taxonomy for what counted as an animal, monster, spirit, god, titan, ghost, immortal, Ancient One, or human being. A big sea monster could be a god if he impressed enough passing sailors. And this one was impressively big.

A dark ridge protruded from the water, which may have been the monster’s spine or dorsal fins. The water concealed most of his bulk. He released several streams of vapor, which were not the paltry sprays from a whale clearing its blow hole. The monster let off screaming jets of super-heated steam, like those from a geothermal geyser. The creature beneath the waves had developed an incredibly alien biology. He must have been converting mana to heat—something like I did to keep myself warm in the rain, but a million times more powerful.

The monster had an intense inner fire. Malisent’s strong fire was as a candle to this raging furnace. The waves of magical energy radiating off the titan reached us all the way onboard the deck of the Double Daggers and caused me a mild feeling of vertigo. Og-Sfalensok was a being beyond the reckoning of mortal men.

We cut too close the sea monster. The creature swam westward, so we angled behind it and hoped it wouldn’t slap us with some huge tail as it passed. Thick mist rose off the water and rising steam bubbles churned the surface into a froth. The god might not have used fins at all, and instead used his steam for jet propulsion. With no way to see the full body, there was no way to know for sure. I couldn’t even guess what the original animal had been before he mutated—a whale, squid, fish, or even an arthropod.

“Let’s do another pass,” I said. “I think he’s coming to the surface.”

“Are you mad?” Malisent clutched the wheel tightly, resisting the intense magical presence of the monster.

“Just curious. It’s not every day you get to buzz past a sea god. We used to have tours to go look at whales, you know, and this thing is a hundred times bigger. Too bad I don’t have a camera.”

“We’re leaving before he notices us, you madman.”

The pirate crew also lacked my curiosity about the natural world. They veered off course as soon as they sighted the distinctive row of steam plumes. Sailing directly over a titan was either too dangerous or too disrespectful for their tastes. Not even the Peerless Rake wanted to take that gamble.

“How many of those things are there?” I asked.

“Who could count the gods? I can say that they live in solitude. So no others titans live in Brimwater Gulf besides Og-Sfalensok. We’ll be safe if we get away from him.”

“It’s no good fearing a titan and living in ignorance. We should study a creature like that. Think of all the things we could learn. Not just about biology, but also aetherics and magic.”

It was an exciting prospect. As much as the world had been ruined, the upheaval also offered strange, new phenomena to study, which could bring insights into the nature of the universe. With time and effort, mankind could relearn all it had forgotten and make new discoveries besides. We could create a new metropolis greater than the one of the past.

“Such blasphemy. You’ll make a good cultist yet, Ariman the Ancient…”