Tress of the Emerald Sea

Fort made room for Tress by the prow, sending a couple of Dougs to watch from the rigging instead. It was evening, and this far away from the lunagree the green dome of the Verdant Moon drooped low on the horizon behind them—a mirror image to the Crimson one ahead. A vast red sphere in the sky, peeking over the horizon, with the sun hovering above it like an eager sibling.

Closer to the ship, just ahead, the verdant spores gradually mixed with the crimson, making a gradient where—from a distance—the center was a deep brown. The vibrant, shimmering red beyond seemed an ocean of blood, like the Crimson Moon had been shot and the Crow’s Song was sailing toward its corpse.

Tress hadn’t given thought to how wrong that color would feel. The Emerald Moon and Sea had, quite literally, colored everything she’d ever seen. It intimidated her to realize she was leaving it and entering that wounded red ocean instead. She’d been watched by the Verdant Moon all her life, and a very small piece of her—irrational though it was—worried she’d vanish the moment it stopped thinking about her.

As they closed the distance, then crossed the border, Fort leaned against the railing and held up his sign. You’re grinning.

“Sorry,” Tress said. “It’s just that this is terrifying.”

You smile when things are terrifying?

“I didn’t use to,” she said. “I think my brain is intimidated by how insane things are out here on the seas, and is trying to fit in.”

Fort rubbed his chin, but didn’t write anything else. She knew he was thinking about her supposed role as a King’s Mask, and how she wasn’t nearly as frightened of spores as she should have been. And again, it wasn’t that. She was afraid.

At the same time, she hadn’t realized how terribly beautiful those red spores would be. Nor how strange it would feel to be leaving the Emerald Sea. These were new emotions, and like new flavors, they could be simultaneously terrifying and intoxicating.

What else would she have never known about herself, if she hadn’t left her home island? Worse, how many people like her lived in ignorance, lacking the experience to fully explore their own existence? It is one of the most bitter ironies I’ve ever had to accept: there are, unquestionably, musical geniuses of incomparable talent who died as street sweepers because they never had the chance to pick up an instrument.

The Crow’s Song continued straight on into the Crimson Sea until one of the Dougs in the rigging called out a warning. The sky had opened up, and death was snaking toward them.

Tress had never seen rain before. On her island, water came from wells. Though she’d been told about water falling from the sky, it had always felt magical, mystical. A thing of stories.

One of those stories apparently wanted to eat her, for the rain came streaking straight toward them: a knot of fast-moving clouds in the sky, trailing an explosion of aether in a line upon the ocean. A vast wall of crimson spikes that grew up and locked together with such force, the clacking sound was audible from a great distance.

Tress stood, mesmerized. Salay, fortunately, had more experience here—and was already turning the ship when the captain called out an order to do so. They veered hard, tacking to port and swerving—lethargically—back into the Verdant.

The rainline didn’t give chase, though it did turn upon the border of the seas, racing on ahead, leaving interlocking crimson spines thirty feet tall. Those eventually slumped and sank into the sea, leaving it pristine, calm. Like a child who stuffed the broken cookie jar under the counter and assumed all would be forgotten.

“Moons,” Tress breathed. “What if…what if the seethe had stilled right then? What if we’d been unable to move…”

Fort glanced at his board to read what she’d said. His only response was to shrug. It was the sort of risk they would take, sailing the Crimson.

Tress turned toward the quarterdeck, where Crow stood near the helm station, taking a long pull on her canteen. She lowered it, and seemed thoughtful.

She wouldn’t dare press forward, would she? With that rainline slithering through the region?

“Helmswoman,” Crow finally said, projecting her voice so everyone could hear. “Kindly take us south a spell, along the border. It seems…imprudent to enter the Crimson at the moment.”

“As you command, Captain,” Salay said.

Crow swooped down to the main deck, then slammed herself into her cabin. Laggart hurried down the steps, nearly stumbling in his haste, then quickly covered the slip by shouting for the Dougs to get back to work. In minutes, they were sailing a leisurely course along the border. Fort excused himself to go scrub some pots, leaving Tress leaning against the ship’s rail.

Laggart stomped past Tress, then hesitated. “You,” he said. “What do you think of this now?”

“I honestly don’t know,” she replied. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it all.”

“I can help with that!” Dr. Ulaam’s voice called from nearby.

Laggart grunted. Then he gestured for her to follow. Curious, she joined him on the quarterdeck. Behind the helm and the captain’s roost was the aft cannon, set out on its own railed platform, like a heavily reinforced balcony sticking out the very back of the vessel.

It was a dangerous section of the ship, as it was away from the silver protections. Spores that somehow leaped the gap between sea and deck here would take longer to die. That, of course, was important for the zephyr spores used as charges.

Laggart rummaged in the gunnery barrel—an action that fortunately caused him to look down. Because if he’d seen Tress’s face, he might have noticed her sudden spike of worry. What was he doing? Was he going to confront her with one of the swapped cannonballs?

Moons…she would have made a terrible spy. How could Salay and the others possibly think she was a King’s Mask? Tress didn’t understand that it is quite possible to be so bad at something it seems implausible. In these cases, it stands to reason that such a person is in fact quite competent—because it takes true competence to feign such spectacular incompetence. It’s called the transitive property of ineptitude, and is the explanation for anything you’ve seen me do wrong ever.

In this case, Tress’s transitive ineptitude didn’t come into play, because Laggart didn’t see how nervous she was—nor did he confront her with a fake cannonball. Instead he selected an ordinary cannonball, then held it up as if admiring a beautiful painting. Or—considering the way his bald head on the end of his toothpick neck made him look—perhaps he was wondering if there was any relation.

“Now that we’re proper pirates,” he said to Tress, “I figure we ought to have someone on this ship besides me and the captain who knows how to fire a cannon. The rest of the crew are too useless around spores to be trained. Congratulations.”