Part 1 (1/2)

Mistress of the Pearl.

by Eric Van l.u.s.tbader.

PROLOGUE.

So the black Chimaera says to the mermaiden, 'You have displeased me, and for this I will carve your heart out and feed it to you.' And the mermaiden says, 'I would not mind so much, but I am a vegetarian.'

The small off-duty complement of Sarakkon laughed at the first mate's joke, and why not? The Oomaloo was nearing the end of its long journey north from the bustling port of Celiocco on the southern continent. The air belowdecks was turgid and sweet with laaga smoke. But they sprang to as they heard the lookout's long-awaited call of ”Land-all!” and thundered up the companionway. Halfway there, however, their high spirits evaporated, as the s.h.i.+p abruptly heeled over. Thrown against the polished wooden bulkhead, they shook their heads as the s.h.i.+p righted itself. But now they could feel the thrumming of the heavy seas, and they heard the storm call even as they rushed on deck.

The captain stood amids.h.i.+ps, his eyes tearing in the high wind. Like all Sarakkon, he was tall and slender, his skin, sun-washed, wind-scoured, the color of ripe pomegranates. One eye squinty from a fishhook through it in intemperate youth. He had a full beard, sign of his rank, and through its thick curling black hair were threaded carved blue-jade spheres, silver cubes, tiny conical striped sh.e.l.ls. He wore a lightweight kilted skirt and the kaldea-a wide belt of cured sea grape that circled his waist and hung down in front in a complex series of knots, identifying his status as well as his lineage. The moment his crew appeared, he gestured them to their stations. Moments before, the wind moaning its intentions in his ear bones, he had signaled the lookout down from his nest. One glance to the northeast had confirmed what he knew: within minutes the storm would overtake them. Already they were being buffeted by fistfuls of sleet. Sensing the storm's powerful heart, he was reminded anew of how arrogant and small they all were.

Like virtually all Sarakkonian s.h.i.+ps that made this long journey, the Oomaloo was a marvelously sleek three-masted merchanter, but loaded down as it was with valuable cargo, the s.h.i.+p was less maneuverable and thus more vulnerable to inclement weather. On top of that, the sleet, catching rigging and bra.s.s fittings, looked to bring down the sails. Although the captain was both clever and experienced, he was under an inordinate amount of pressure because of the nature of one piece of cargo. It was not something he had wished to transport, but he had been given no choice by the Orieniad, the Sarakkon ruling council.

The Oomaloo, borne by the last great storm of winter, heeled over, and the high slate seas overran its scuppers, flooding the deck. The next wave, more towering than the last, took three of the crew, his lookout among them, as it crashed obliquely across the deck. The howling wind drowned out their screams as they tumbled across the canted deck, carried overboard into the wild and punis.h.i.+ng sea.

The second mate, a parsimonious devil, and therefore in charge of the larder, made an unwise lunge for them. The captain grabbed him from behind, kept him close to, thus ensuring that he would not lose a fourth member of his crew to the cruel Sea of Blood. Then he freed him aft to tie down rigging the gale had ripped loose.

Tearing his mind away from the tragedy, the captain yelled to the navigator to turn west. He and his first mate scrambled across a deck s.h.i.+n deep in sluicing water, the whorled tattoos that covered their shaved heads and bodies seeming to come alive with the actions of their muscles.

As he seized the mizzenmast, the other asked him what he meant to do.

”You will help us put the s.h.i.+p under full sail,” the captain replied over the roar of the storm.

”Full sail?” The first mate, a knot of muscle, a face all gnawed bone, was aghast. ”That will capsize us for certain.” He turned his eyes fearfully to the mainsails already straining their sleet-grizzled grommets to the limit. ”We should be furling all sail.”

”We will founder and be taken under.”

”Then we should be making all haste for Axis Tyr.””We are now heading west, the same direction as the storm.”

”But that is away from Axis Tyr. The port is our only-”

The captain was already unwinding the rigging from the bra.s.s stays. ”We are going to use our sails to race ahead of it.”

Still the first mate balked. ”That is certain suicide,” he shouted, wiping spume off his sharply triangular goatee.

The captain grabbed his first mate by the wet flaps of his tooled sharkskin vest, slammed his back against the mast. ”Listen to us. Our only chance is to round the Cape of Broken Meridian, where the Sea of Blood meets the Illuminated Sea. There the s.h.i.+p will be protected. The s.h.i.+p will be safe!”

”Safe?” The mate shot him a horrified look. ”No Sarakkon s.h.i.+p has sailed this part of the Illuminated Sea, and you know why. The legends-”

A wall of water smashed into the Oomaloo, and the s.h.i.+p dipped dangerously to port, taking on more water. The captain, seeing his navigator wrestling the recalcitrant tiller, bellowed at the second mate. With that worthy's help, the navigator put his shoulder into it and slowly, with a painful creaking, the s.h.i.+p turned her high, carved prow more quickly to the west.

”We have no time for superst.i.tion,” the captain said to his first mate. His thick beard was rimed with salt water and spittle. The silver runes woven into it glistened in the dim light. ”We have our lives to think of.”

”Not our lives,” the first mate shouted back. ”The life of our pa.s.senger. It is evil luck to sail with a female on board.”

”More superst.i.tion.” The captain struck his first mate a ma.s.sive blow to the side of his head. ”You have not s.h.i.+pped with us before. Aboard the Oomaloo our word is law.” A dirk with a wrapped s.h.a.green handle bloomed in his fist. ”Now unfurl all sail and make it quick!” The dirk's point grazed the side of the mate's neck. ”Else we swear by Yahe's sweet lips we will slit your throat.”

The first mate leapt to, but not without a look dark with ferment. He and the captain worked smoothly and efficiently, their muscles bulging, their booted feet planted wide on the pitching deck. Methodically, doggedly in the raging face of the storm, they repeated the same procedure with the sails on each of the Oomalao's masts. And as the s.h.i.+p came to full sail, it leapt forward as if propelled by the engine of a V'ornn hoverpod. Its hull fairly lifted from the boiling sea as it skimmed along on the leading gusts of the gale.

Waves had ceased to overrun the deck, and to starboard could be seen the rocky tip of the thick finger of land known as the Cape of Broken Meridian, beyond which lay the uncharted waters of the Illuminated Sea. The captain noted the fear in his first mate's eyes, but behind the Oomaloo was a growing wall of water, black and ugly and lethal. No matter what-if the legends were true or no-there was no turning back. A sure death rode their stern and would doubtless overtake them should their speed falter.

He strode aft, climbing the short, slippery companionway to where the navigator held the juddering tiller steady.

”When we come abeam of the cape make ready to turn her hard to starboard,” he growled. ”We want to get land between us and the storm as quickly as possible.”

The navigator nodded. He had s.h.i.+pped with the captain since their youth. His teeth were gritted, and the cords of his neck stood out in stark relief with the effort of holding the Oomaloo on course. For an instant, he caught the captain's eye, and the look that pa.s.sed between them served as silent tribute to the crew that had perished. Then they directed their attention to what lay ahead.

The area of ocean off the tip of the Cape of Broken Meridian was known as the Cauldron because it was aboil even in the calmest of weather. Its extreme turbulence could be seen, and ofttimes felt, by Sarakkon crews as they headed to and from the port of Axis Tyr. These deep and dangerous crosscurrents at the confluence of the two seas were fearful enough even without the alarming Sarakkonian legends attached to the Illuminated Sea.

The captain squeezed the navigator's shoulder. No need to voice his trepidation. The gale was hurling them directly into the heart of the maelstrom. Grey spume flew over the high prow, which was carvedinto a Protector-a composite image unique to each Sarakkonian s.h.i.+p. The Oomaloo's was of the lithe body of Yahe crowned with the n.o.ble head of the paiha. In this way, the very bones of the s.h.i.+p were infused with the G.o.ddess's wisdom and the mythic bird of prey's great healing powers. As the Oomaloo began to pitch and roll in the fierce crosscurrents the captain knew that they would need all of their Protector's powers if they were to survive.

The s.h.i.+p dipped precipitously as they came abeam of the cape's tip. He could see the frothy spume geysering high into the turbid sky as the sea beat itself against the jagged black rocks. He saw the navigator pus.h.i.+ng the tiller, trying to take them hard to starboard. Since the winds were still too high and unpredictable to risk sending a lookout up the mizzenmast, he dispatched the first mate to the prow to keep a sharp eye out for any sign of rock outcroppings or reefs.

A great shuddering began to work its way through the Oomaloo as the s.h.i.+p entered the perilous crosscurrents. The captain got his first look at the Illuminated Sea, and it was not rea.s.suring. Despite its name, the water was dark as night, the same color as the rocks that jutted from the tip of the Cape of Broken Meridian. Even the most expert eye would have difficulty differentiating the two.

The speed of the s.h.i.+p, which had been their savior against the storm, now worked against them in these uncharted waters. The captain called for all sails to be reefed, and his crew sprang to. He was battening down the canvas when the first mate rushed up to him. His face was pale and pinched and his eyes rolled in his head.

”We gave you an order,” the captain growled, now sorely vexed. ”Why have you abandoned your post?”

”We have-” The first mate swallowed hard. ”We have seen it, Captain.”

”Seen what?” The captain had his hands full, prepared to order the navigator to alter course. ”A reef?”

The mate shook his spume-wet head. ”Not a reef. We-”

”Well, out with it then!” The navigator was winning the war with the crosscurrents. The s.h.i.+p was slowly but surely turned to starboard, putting the finger of the cape between it and the storm. ”What did you see?”

”A Chimaera.” The first mate was shaking. ”A black Chimaera.”

”First, we are in uncharted waters. We are relying on your eyes to keep us from breaking apart. The daemons out of your imagination-”

”But we did see it, Captain. By Yahe's full lips, we swear it. We saw a black Chimaera. The legends are true!”

At that moment, they were all pitched violently forward as, with a great grinding scream, the Oomaloo's forward momentum came to an abrupt halt.

”Reef hoy!”

The navigator's cry was nearly drowned out by the grinding and rending of lacquered timbers. The captain, picking himself up off the deck, saw a crack like a finger of doom zigzagging up the side of the Protector, and he knew all was lost. They were impaled upon the thrice-d.a.m.ned obsidian reef. He knew his duty, the one he had been made to swear before he had set sail. Immediately, he made for the aft com-panionway, leaving the first mate's screams behind him.

Down the wet companionway he slid. The lower deck was already awash with seawater, with more imminent. There were multiple rents in the forward hull, as if the sea were eating the Oomaloo alive, and the crosscurrents ground the s.h.i.+p against the jagged reef, as if to leave only wormy powder behind.

He reached his cabin, tore open the door. Krystren was standing as if antic.i.p.ating his appearance.

Sea-green eyes, a face of extremes, like iron and velvet. She was wrapped in her wine-dark sea greatcoat. Her hair, dark and glossy as sea wrack, was wound in a thick braid, like a coil of stout rope that wouldn't fray in the worst of winter weather.

Without a word, the captain grabbed her hand and hurried toward the aft companionway. Already the seawater was up to their s.h.i.+ns. The s.h.i.+p gave a great lurch, tossing them to their knees. Up ahead, torrents began to pour through the widening rent. They regained their feet and ran.