Going about like a gilded sovereign, the massive bearded Wolf, sea-weathered and sun-bronzed, bedecked with fabulous jewelry and fine silks, used all his swagger to impress potential crew. Leaving nothing to chance, the Lord Farseeker fitted out a sturdy ship, provisioned it well, and gave Captain Gumberpott worthy means to attract a favorable crew. And it worked. Common seabeasts and tough old salts readily signed on to sail aboard Daring Dream.
Seeker’s Keep, the fine port of Lord Farseeker’s realm, had long been a magnet for all sorts of seafarers. “Every beast in Seeker’s Keep is either a seabeast, or a landlubber disguised as one!”—so the saying went. Dashing swashbucklers and humble fisher-beasts, roguish rebels and fine-mannered merchants. Any beast with an interest in the sea found his way to Seeker’s Keep at one time of another. And this explosion of seabeast flavors suited Lord Farseeker’s plans very well. Seeker’s Keep was a marvelous place to recruit a crew—with the proper means.
Giving Red Whale a velvet bag full of heavy gold earrings, the Lord Lynx said, “Daring Dream is a ship of promise. Every beast aboard must be a seeker of good fortunes—but a ship has only hopes until good fortune is found. Hang one gold ring in the ear of every one of your crew. That will be my own good fortune going with each beast until he finds his own.”
With such terms and tactics Red Whale attracted a worthy crew. But more than swagger, coins and rings, and promise of adventure, Captain Gumberpott knew his seabeasts. He knew what they loved and what they feared. He knew what they wanted in a captain and in a ship. He was a seabeast’s captain—brave, wise, smart, and fair to every crew beast.
On the day Daring Dream set sail, the instructions given by Captain Gumberpott to his crew said it all: “Aboard this ship all beasts serve alike in both All’s-Well and danger, and all take the watch in fair wind and foul. No other port than we all reach it together. Pull our oars hard for each other, trim our sails to preserve each of us. After this, good food and drink, be careful with fire, and keep only to good rogues. But first and last be this: every ship’s beast deserves to live another day—I’ll not be waste’n my crew on fool’s chances!”
On the 3rd day after the summer calms ended and the fall fair winds returned, Lord Farseeker gave Captain Gumberpott his commission, “Aright it is and so you are ordered,” he said, “to voyage across the Great Sea in search of the Outer Rings, and there to trade with every kind of creature you may find, provided only you keep an exact journal of your voyage, giving full and accurate account of all you learn and discover, and bring hither the tenth part of the whole of whatever value you may glean.”
That Red Whale Gumberpott and Daring Dream would never be heard from again along that dock, nor in the taverns and scrogging halls, was then a story unknown. Now it begins.
Ice Fall Narrows
The last bit of land shown on Lord Farseeker’s maps before the Voi-Nil was a considerable, but barely noted, rugged island called Ice Fall Narrows. Uninhabited, except for a clan of hardy Otters who had discovered the island long ago, and stayed to make a life raising vegetables and smoking fish, it lay two month’s sailing from Seeker’s Keep.
Two months is a long time without landfall. Fresh water gone. Provisions wormy. Tempers ragged. To sail beyond two months without seeing land, seabeasts must be strongly determined and suffer much. With years of sailing unknown seas under his belt and particular experience sailing the edge of the Voi-Nil, Red Whale was able to calm the mounting fears of his crew. “Look here mates, we’re a ship of lucky beasts. I’ve been to Ice Fall Narrows and we won’t be long getting there now. Two more good days of favoring winds and we’ll be seeing the ice cap of Smoking Bill.” Smoking Bill, a long-silent volcano that rose up from the sea, forming the island, trailed a perpetual cloud of steam from its summit. Rising several thousand feet above the sea, a snow and ice field forever covered Smoking Bill’s upper heights.
“Now, the first beast as sees Smoking Bill and sings out, ‘Land!’—that beast will be the first one ashore when we drop anchor,” Red Whale continued. The crew hardly slept after that. Off duty seabeasts crowded the rails, each wanting to be the first to sight Smoking Bill.
Sixty-three days into the voyage, Daring Dream was plowing forward under full sail when Katteo Jor’Dane sang out the long-awaited cry: “Land! Smoke three points off starboard!” “Aye, Cap’t—Smokin’ Bill just comin’ up over the horizon!” yelled Smits Howler from his lookout platform far up on the mast.