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Horam and Lilith found their sea legs in a matter of hours after leaving the calmer waters surrounded by the Theban Islands, but the open ocean didn’t agree with Rianne and Alcide. Ironically, the locally recruited Friar came from a fishing family. But they worked the shallower waters at the archipelago’s heart rather than venture beyond the isles looking for Hatshepsut’s large pelagic animals. The latter’s size meant they could feed several families for over a week and command handsome prices at the Thebes dockside market. However, their strength made them a challenge for most fishers whose boats were simply too small.
Horam joined them at the leeward railing, where they commiserated while the archipelago dwindled beyond the horizon.
“You seem disgustingly cheerful,” Rianne grumbled as she glanced at Horam sideways.
“Fresh sea air, a nice cleansing wind, and no priory responsibilities waiting for me, what’s not to like?” He found a place at the rail, upwind from his green-tinged colleagues, and sighed. “If I wasn’t a Friar, then on this world, I’d be a sailor. Tell me, how does motion sickness feel?”
“A bit like the transition to and from hyperspace, but less intense and a lot more permanent. Fortunately, meditation helps dampen the worst of it. We’ll be fine once we master the skill of suppressing the feeling without conscious effort.”
Friar Alcide let out a soft groan.
“Speak for yourself, Sister.”
“Once I’ve mastered the process, I can teach you.”
“Then please master it quickly. I’d rather the crew not find out a fisher’s son can’t stomach the waves out here.”
Horam patted him on the shoulder.
“Just be happy this isn’t the stormy season, my friend.”
“I’d be happier if we brought motion sickness medication.”
“Consider this a learning opportunity. Friars and Sisters of the Void must be in control of their bodies and minds, so they don’t need medication for minor inconveniences.”
Alcide grimaced at his colleague.
“It doesn’t feel minor right now.”
Rianne abruptly straightened her back and smiled.
“Done. I figured it wouldn’t take long.” She turned toward Alcide and touched his temples with her fingertips. “Open your mind and let me show you how I did it.”
After a few seconds, Alcide’s face muscles relaxed, and a faint smile replaced his earlier misery.
“There.” Rianne released him. “Consider this a special occasion. Normally, we expect that Brethren learn these things on their own since it’s the best way of making them second nature. But seeing as how the evening meal is approaching, and I’d rather see you eat with your accustomed appetite, I decided an exception was in order.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
The immense relief in the young Friar’s voice drew chuckles from both Horam and Lilith. The former said, grinning at Rianne, “She can be a veritable paragon of mercy when she deems it appropriate, which isn’t often. And that means this is your lucky day, lad.”
Alcide bowed at the waist.
“In that case, I’m doubly grateful, Sister.”
“Call my mercy enlightened self-interest. Shall we take a stroll around the deck and work on our appetites?”
**
The days succeeded each other in a monotonous rhythm as Aswan Trader sliced through the Equatorial Ocean under a burning sun, tacking twice a day, no more. For Rianne and Horam, the sensation of solitude in this watery vastness was a novel experience. Both were born on a world where suborbital shuttles connected distant settlements in ninety minutes or less, meaning the average Lyonesse citizens rarely found themselves isolated from the planet’s advanced, thirty-seventh-century civilization. Finally, one morning, the lookout’s cry of ‘land ho’ saw everyone scurrying up on deck.
The four Brethren joined Fenrir aft and waited as he scanned the western horizon with his telescope. Soon, they could make out indistinct bumps rising from the water, not just straight ahead but marching both north and south until they faded from sight.
“The Saqqara Isles,” Aswan Trader’s master said without looking back at the monastics. “They run well over a thousand kilometers in either direction. Most of the channels are impassable by ships of our size, except for a very few. We’re headed for the Central Passage, the most direct route to Mazaber and the deepest, widest, and until the pirates came along, safest of them. Using either the North or South Passages would add a week to our trip and be a beast if the wind turns. On the other hand, considering how the Saqqara barbarian tribes are becoming more aggressive, they’re probably no safer from a sneak attack by small boat swarms unless we stand well out, and that means fighting beastly currents that circle the globe.”
“What’s driving the surge in piracy?” Rianne asked.
“Who knows? Their gods driving them; humors in the blood; unscrupulous Aksumite merchants looking for cheap profits or chieftains with delusions of grandeur. Take your pick, Sister. They’re just as fanatical and deadly, no matter what reason. Two or three years ago, this was just as safe as Theban waters. Now? We’ll be hauling our guns up on deck within the hour and posting sentries night and day. If you’ve come armed yourselves, keep your weapons handy. We could always use a few more pairs of hands, especially since we’re short three men because of the last time we navigated these waters.”
Rianne and Horam exchanged a quick glance. Better to reveal they carried needlers than spring the surprise during a night attack. Besides, Horam could handle one of the ship’s railguns as if it were a mere pistol.
“We carry personal weapons, Captain,” she said. “And Horam can handle a railgun better than any of your crew. He learned how during his service in the Lyonesse Defense Force.”
Fenrir studied the big Friar.
“No doubt. Size helps as well with something that long and heavy. I’ll see you’re issued one of our off-world slug throwers the moment we stand to.”
“Could I familiarize myself with one now?” Horam asked in a respectful tone.
“Sure.”
Fenrir sought out his first mate, standing amidship and waved. The man trotted over, an air of curiosity on his round face.
“Captain?”
“Friar Horam has volunteered to man one of the railguns if we encounter pirates. He’s used them before and will manage better than our people in a pinch. Show him the armory and let him practice.”
A nod.
“As you wish.” The first mate turned to Horam. “Please follow me, Friar.”
While watching both men head for the stairs, Rianne asked, “Do you think we’ll meet any when we cross the Passage?”
“Perhaps. If their chieftain is hungry enough and the wind is against us. Or the Aksumites backing the pirates want another try at capturing this ship and using it for their own purposes. Aksum shipwrights can’t yet build barquentines capable of sailing as close to the wind as Aswan Trader, let alone equip them with Stirling engines.” He gave Rianne a quick smile. “But never fear. Our engine is warm and ready if the winds play us foul, and we need a few extra knots to escape.”
“Does it push your ship faster than the pirates can row?”
“It depends on how much qash they’ve been chewing,” Fenrir replied, naming a native plant species with wildly varying, idiosyncratic effects on the human nervous system. “Get enough of the bastards in any given boat feeling good, and they’ll row themselves to death. Too bad it doesn’t affect their aim that much.”
“It will, in time. We studied qash because we were curious if the plant had medicinal properties. The republic’s government is right in banning its cultivation, import, and consumption. Continued use will eventually end in irreversible nerve damage, including loss of all five senses, with insanity finally taking over after the drug destroys enough brain cells and rewires neural connections. Premature death is inevitable.”
Fenrir cocked an astonished eyebrow at Rianne.
“Really? And how much use will trigger this?”
She shrugged.
“It depends on the individual, but on average, we estimate a few years of daily use, perhaps as little as two or three. Once the decline begins, we figure users die in a matter of months.”
“That might explain the last attack. They seemed a tad rabid.”
“Any idea how long since someone introduced qash in the Saqqara Islands?”
“Two or three years is my guess. The islanders only began attacking our ships recently.” Fenrir paused and wrinkled his brow as an idea struck him. “Do you think Aksumite commercial interests are feeding them qash deliberately and inciting them to commit acts of piracy? Perhaps as a way of eliminating us as competition now that we’re advancing beyond their technological level with your help?”
“They wouldn’t be the first who introduced deadly addictive substances into a vulnerable population to debauch and destabilize opponents. It’s a trick as old as humanity. Considering Thebes is rapidly becoming a dominant force on Hatshepsut, I wouldn’t be surprised the leading Aksumite city-states are using Saqqarans to erode the Theban trade advantage.”
Fenrir scowled.
“Nasty. Mind you, the islanders were always more savage than the rest of us for as long as anyone can remember. Something happened to them in the years after the Great Scouring that changed their nature.”
“A not uncommon occurrence on worlds devastated by Dendera,” Rianne replied in a soft, sad voice. “Many couldn’t deal with witnessing so many lives and the future of an entire civilization erased in a matter of moments and went mad as a result. Their descendants, especially those living in isolated societies cut off from the rest of the planet, still experience a form of that madness caused by intergenerational trauma.”
A grim chuckle escaped Fenrir’s throat.
“So, the Saqqarans are crazy. Figures. You hear rumors of folks landing on the islands, looking for adventure or to seize territory and vanishing without a trace. Just like Cimarron’s crew.”
When Rianne cocked a questioning eyebrow, a mysterious grin twisted Fenrir’s lips.
“I’ll tell you the story in a few hours when we’re in the Passage, where you can feel the menace emanating from the thick jungle on both sides. It makes for a better atmosphere.”
Over the following hours, the bumps on the horizon grew into hundreds of mountainous, presumably volcanic, vegetation-covered islands, with gigantic trees marching out into the narrow channels on massive root tangles. Even this close, the Brethren, standing by the aft starboard railing, couldn’t make out the Central Passage’s entrance. It seemed as if a massive living barrier stood between Aswan Trader and her destination.
Then, the barquentine tacked to port, and the scenery shifted, at first subtly, then more dramatically, and they saw a broad channel cutting through the brooding, dark green mass. Moments later, Fenrir called his ship to action stations, and sailors from both watches took observation and firing positions in the tops and around the deck. Horam, one of the long railguns in hand, joined them aft, from where he could act as a sniper and cover either side if needed.
As they rounded the first island to starboard, Rianne saw a dark outline lying on a shingle beach, deep within a narrow inlet.
“Cimarron, schooner. Or what’s left of her,” Fenrir said.
“Pirates?” Horam asked.
“No, Friar. Her disaster predates the era of Saqqaran depredations.”
“What happened?”
“No one knows. I was an apprentice at the time, a junior master’s mate learning his craft, about twenty years ago. Cimarron was headed for Mazaber with a cargo of wine and grain on what would be her last voyage. The captain had a reputation as a hard man, who feared little in this life, not even the Almighty. My ship back then, the schooner Morningstar, traveled through this very passage on our way to Mazaber as well, weeks after Cimarron was due back in Thebes. Naturally, her owner asked Theban ships to keep a lookout.” Fenrir paused and squinted at the shadowy inlet. “That wreck wasn’t there during our outbound leg. Three weeks later, on our return home, we inexplicably found her as she is now, beached, her masts down, her spars and ropes a complete mess.”
“Was she driven ashore by a storm?”
Fenrir turned his eyes on Sister Lilith.
“There were no storms during the time between Cimarron’s departure from Thebes and us finding her wreck. She simply vanished after leaving Mazaber, her business concluded, only to reappear here days after we passed through. The captain sent me with a landing party to investigate. We found her cargo holds full, her crew’s personal possessions stowed away normally, the ship’s log and books in the captain’s desk. Even the purser’s money chest was still there, intact. The captain’s last log entry placed her at anchor overnight on the other side of the Passage, waiting for daylight before crossing. Even without pirates, a sane sailor doesn’t try it in the dark.”
Friar Alcide let out a low whistle.
“Spooky. Now that you mention it, I vaguely recall the tale of Cimarron’s strange fate.”
“As do I,” Lilith added.
“No one ever found out what happened. We brought the sailors’ dunnage bags, the log and books, the purser’s chest, and anything else we could carry and handed it to the ship’s owner when we got home. Ever since, Theban mariners consider the wreck cursed and therefore out of bounds. The Saqqarans might have plundered the cargo after we left. They might even have helped drive her aground and killed the crew. But if so, why didn’t they take anything at the time? And more importantly, where was she between her last log entry and when we spotted her on our return trip, some time later?”
Horam gave Fenrir a skeptical look.
“Quite the ghost ship story, Captain. Is any of it true?”
Fenrir placed his hand over his heart.
“I swear by the Almighty. Hatshepsut hides more inexplicable mysteries than anyone knows. Perhaps this planet has been out of sync with the universe since the Great Scouring.”
“Possibly,” Rianne mused. “The Infinite Void is unknowable, though it influences what we are and what we do and resonates with both the good and the evil our species is capable of, and the Scouring was one of the worst evils in our history.”