What new expanse of empty sea awaits!
He emerged beneath a clear, star-studded night-time sky when he climbed to the mid-deck. Peering about – squinting, as his vision was not what it used to be either – he found their tormentor near the bows. The daemon in man form, Kallor, stood with hands clasped behind his back, armoured as always, peering up at the stars. A faint wind brushed his wispy iron-grey hair and beard.
A mad urge to rush the man and thrust him over the side took hold of Lars, but he wept instead as he no longer had the strength even to throttle a child. Instead, he sidled up beside the monster and asked, ‘Why read the stars, m’lord?’
The creature shot him a glance of disgust before returning to examining the night sky. ‘Just dredging up an old memory, in truth.’
‘Memory?’
‘Yes.’ Kallor turned to the stern, calling, ‘A point north, steersman!’
Lars and he waited in silence for a time, until there came from the darkness a weak ‘Aye’.
‘Memory, m’lord?’ Lars prompted, blinking, and though the sea was uncannily calm this night he steadied himself with a hand at the railing. How long had it been since he’d eaten real food? Not counting the blood he drank from that wounded fellow he’d found below …
The monster in human form nodded, smiling faintly, as if at an old memory. ‘Yes. I came this way once before … long ago.’
Lars blinked again, peered uncomprehending at the great vastness of rolling waves surrounding them and the empty heavens coursing above, and could not contain the hilarity that came bubbling up from within. He laughed openly, giggling and guffawing. He swept an arm to the broad sea, sneering in open scorn. ‘You came this way? In the trackless ocean? Are you a fool?’
Kallor glanced to him in revulsion, then raised an arm and swung it backhanded.
Stars exploded in Lars’ vision. Stars that floated, dimming, like butterflies, until they faded and darkness took him.
*
He awoke to glaring sunshine and the thump of feet on the decking. Something crusted his mouth. He groaned, fumbled at the railing above him, and drew himself up. One of the last of their sailors came limping past, his head hanging, and Lars called to him, ‘What is it? What’s going on?’
The sailor pointed ahead. ‘Land.’
Lars blinked. Land? Truly? He squinted to the western horizon – all he could make out was a dark blur far off atop the waves. Land? Really? Which could it be? Fabled Stratem? Rich Quon? Or perhaps the immense lands of the Seven Holy Cities? He staggered after his tormentor to the very bows. ‘What land is this, m’lord?’ he asked, and could not help but flinch away as the fiend turned to him.
This time, however, an indulgent smile crooked the monster’s mouth, as if he were addressing a child, and he said, ‘It is no land.’
Lars examined the broad thin smear. Not land? He blinked, nearly faint from lack of food, and decided that perhaps he could no longer trust his senses. How could this be?
But as the Tempest closed upon the dark blur it became more and more clear that the manifestation, whatever it was, certainly was not land. Land thickened as one neared from offshore; highlands and distant mountains resolved out of the blue haze, and clouds massed. Here, however, no such distant inland heights appeared; the darkness remained just that, a thin line floating barely above the waves.
It was not until they were almost within bowshot that Lars could make out exactly what they approached: a floating construct. Huge, immense, fully the size of a large fortress or city. He marvelled that such an artefact could exist – and that he, or anyone he knew, would have no knowledge of it. It astounded him that there could exist some whole new place in the world of which he had heard no hint whatsoever.
Enormous tree-trunk pillars supported piers that extended from its boardwalk wharves. Smoke and the stink of humanity now wafted over them; that and a delicious commingled mouth-watering scent of cookery that almost made him faint. Those among the crew of the Tempest who still had the strength to rise now struggled with lowering the sails and preparing lines.
As the Tempest neared a berth at the end of one such pier, Lars saw no other vessels of its size anywhere. All the rest were small single-masted open boats, or oared smacks or dories – none capable of any ocean crossing.
Lines were thrown, weakly, all falling short, but crew on shore used boathooks to catch them, drawing in the Tempest just as a double file of armoured men and women came marching down the pier. Each carried a large oval shield on their back, and held a wicked-looking crossbow. They lined up facing the Tempest, and on an order the front rank knelt and raised their weapons, while the second remained standing, also with weapons raised. All this Kallor took in while leaning on the side rail, an amused smile hovering at his lips.
A strange armoured figure then pushed through the double line to stand before it. Lars thought it a thin man in plate, but he appeared even too skinny for that. Yet he seemed to be encased in metal – rusted and dented bands gleamed here and there, and even his face was a contoured metallic mask. Twin wickedly curved blades hung at his hips. He raised an arm, pointing, and Lars was amazed to see that the hand too was metal, shaped from articulating metal segments.
‘You,’ came a screeching, scraping voice, as of metal snagging on metal, ‘are known of old. You are not welcome here among the Meckros.’
The fiend merely shrugged his mail-encased shoulders. ‘I am not here for trouble. I simply wish to trade.’
Lars frowned at that, thinking: Trade? So, this was not their destination after all? A terrible suspicion now dawned upon him and he thought, So, we are to travel even further?
Another figure pushed forward, this one a bearded old man, his thin hair tied in a long braid and a gold circlet of metal upon his head. ‘You have nothing we want,’ he shouted. ‘Begone, or we will slay you all!’
‘What of slaves?’ Kallor answered. ‘You may have four of my crew.’
Now Lars gaped in truth. What? Slaves?
The city elder looked over the crew now crowding the side, Lars included, and shook his head. ‘They are too sickly. They would be of no use.’
Lars let out a breath of relief while the monster sighed deeply, as if disappointed. ‘Very well. For a few barrels of food and water I trade you your continued miserable existence. A fair deal, I should think.’
The elder flinched as if struck; he choked, fury darkening his face. ‘That is blackmail! We will not agree to that!’
‘Think on my last visit,’ Kallor reminded him mildly.
The fellow’s hands clenched and unclenched. He cast quick calculating glances between the unnatural creature of metal at his side and the fiend on the ship. In the quiet, Lars became aware of a strange whirring sound wafting across the gap, as of gears spinning and ratchets softly clicking.