There was no escape from the heat. For over a week now, the Llothriall had been becalmed, the sea an emerald mirror upon which they sat, seemingly unmoving. As the days grew longer, the temperature began to rise, and the crew escaped below deck, although even here there was no respite. With not a cloud in the sky, water had to be rationed; often, tempers would fray. Several times, Dunsany and Ignacio got into blazing rows, some so intense that Silus had to intervene. Once, when Katya had tried to calm Ignacio herself, the ex-smuggler had turned on her, shortly thereafter finding himself incapacitated and locked in a store room. Four hours confined in the stifling darkness had insured that Ignacio never lashed out again
“Can’t you use your magic or something?” Ignacio asked Kelos one morning, as they lay on the deck, futilely praying for rain. “Can’t you just conjure up a wind to fill our sails and rain to fill our cups?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” the mage said.
In the end Kelos didn’t have to attempt any such sorcery, as they were struck by the mother of all storms.
No one saw it coming. Once it had passed, two of the sails had to be repaired and the hull had to be patched below the waterline. The only blessing was that the sudden change in weather had finally broken the back of the heat.
It didn’t last. The temperature climbed again, the cloud cover boiled away and they were caught once more in a swelter upon a still sea.
When they were on the edge of despair, when they were down to their last few cupfuls of water, the storm slinked back in, pacing the ship far to starboard, before rushing in and lifting the Llothriall high on the back of an enormous wave.
There had been a time when this would have posed little threat, when the Llothriall had been empowered by the magical gemstone at its heart and the song of the ship’s eunuch, Emuel. But the stone had been lost and Emuel no longer had any reason to sing. As they were tossed from wave to wave, all onboard thought that this would be the storm that finally pulled the Llothriall apart.
A shout from above had Silus racing for the stairs leading up to the maindeck, only for the boom to be the first thing that met him; the broken spar swinging round and sweeping him over the side.
The storm was silenced as the sea took him. For a moment, Silus saw the hull of the Llothriall as it was silhouetted by lightning, before a surge carried the ship away. He watched it go for a moment, before filling his lungs with salt water and striking out after it.
Even as the sea invigorated his body, he knew that his pursuit was futile. No matter the powers he had inherited from the Chadassa, Silus wouldn’t be able to outpace this storm. Once or twice he caught sight of the Llothriall, but the tempest departed as quickly as it had come, taking with it all trace of the ship.
Silus surfaced and looked around. The horizon on all sides was the same featureless blue. He could barely make out where sea met sky, and he had no inkling which bearing he should take to locate the ship. It would be all too easy to swim in entirely the wrong direction.
A fin broke the surface not far from where he trod water. A razor dolphin, from the colouring. Silus ducked his head back down below and saw that he was surrounded by a school of twenty or so. The razor dolphins brushed up against him as they tumbled through the water, clicking and whistling in delight at this strange new creature in their midst.
It was then that Silus realised exactly how he’d find the Llothriall.
He raced the school of razor dolphins to the seabed and they followed, eager to outpace him, and just before Silus touched the bottom he spun back and struck for the surface, leaping from the waves, the sleek bodies of the dolphins following in his wake, the rainbow sheen of their hides dazzling in the brilliant sunlight. As much as it might have seemed otherwise to any observer, this wasn’t just Silus killing time with frivolity. Through play, he was trying to gain a hold on the razor dolphins’ minds. The first time he had encountered this species he had found their thoughts slippery, almost impossible to gain a purchase on; but now Silus was beginning to hear and comprehend the song of their thoughts.
They wanted him to stay and play, to come hunting amongst the tuna shoals so that they could get a measure of what manner of creature he was. On any other day, Silus would have delighted in their requests, but now he had a task for them.
As he communicated with the razor dolphins some of them swam away, and then more followed, until he was left with only six looking quizzically at him, their clicks and whistles sounding almost doubtful. But Silus tried to make them understand how important it was to him that they help find the Llothriall. At one point he almost gave up. After all, these were an entirely different species, what possible empathy could they have for a human?
To his surprise, the remaining razor dolphins acquiesced, and soon he was swimming alongside them as they brought their echo location to bear in the hunt for the ship.
Night fell as they swam on and Silus thought he saw the flicker of lightning above, presaging another storm. He only hoped that if the Llothriall had been caught up in it, it hadn’t been torn apart.
When dawn paled the waves, he began to doubt that the razor dolphins would be any help at all. He had no idea if they had truly understood his request. It was possible that they were swimming alongside him merely for the company, or in the belief that Silus could lead them to fruitful hunting grounds, but then he saw something floating above them and struck for the surface.
It was an arm. Silus lifted it from the water, his horror abating when he realised that he was holding wood, not flesh. He recognised the slim hand of the elf maiden who was the Llothriall’s figurehead, and looked around for any sign of the ship. There was a dark shape on the horizon and Silus grabbed hold of the dorsal fin of a razor dolphin as it propelled him towards it.
He was relieved to see, as they drew alongside, that the ship had escaped the storm mostly intact; one of the masts had a hairline fracture and the boom would have to be reset, but they had come through worse before.
“Hello?” he called. “Katya? Dunsany?”
Silus laughed with joy when Katya’s face appeared above him and was delighted to see her look of relief in turn. On deck, the rest of the crew were just as happy to see him. Even Emuel cracked a smile.
Once onboard, Silus kissed Katya long and deep before taking Zac from her arms. He moved to the rail and pointed down.
“Look, Zac. Daddy’s new friends.”
“Fish! Fish!” his son squealed, and the razor dolphins responded to his delight.
“We tried to look for you after the storm,” Katya said. “But the tempest carried us away so swiftly. By the time it was over we didn’t even know where to start looking.”
“And we had no idea when the next storm would roll in,” Dunsany said. “We’ve been battered by two more since. There’s very little warning of their approach. They just rise from nowhere and attack.”
Silus looked around them. The sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue.
“Deceptive, ain’t it?” Ignacio said. “Come on, we best secure the ship before the next one arrives.”
Silus helped lash down anything likely to be swept overboard, and then he, Dunsany and Ignacio reset the boom and secured the masts. The sun was reaching its zenith as they finished, and all were drenched in sweat and out of breath.
Silus took a long draught from one of the rain barrels. He detected an odd taste in the water — something like cinnamon and burnt stone.
Now, fully prepared, the crew settled in to await the arrival of the next storm, but if anything, the sea was calmer than before. Silus felt the merest breath of wind, but after several minutes it became clear that it was not to be the harbinger of anything more significant.
On the other side of the deck, Emuel rose from the crate he had been sitting on and approached the prow. He stood at the rail with his back to them, his right hand rising, moving from side to side, the fingers twitching as they picked out the notes of a melody only he could hear.
Another breeze touched Silus’s face, and this time it was redolent with the smell of damp caverns and lichen-encrusted rock.
Kelos, too, had climbed to his feet, and he began to move towards the eunuch, who turned to meet him.
“You can hear that, can’t you, Kelos?” he said.
“There is… something, yes.”
“The song?”
“I don’t know.”
“Katya,” Silus said. “Get Zac below, now.”
Emuel began to sing. It was the first time in a long time they had heard him do so, and Silus had forgotten how pure and clear his voice was. The tattoos that covered the pale flesh of the emasculated boy started to move, entwining around each other, swirling to the music that all of them were now beginning to hear.
Katya stood at the top of the steps, entranced, Zac squirming in her grip as he reached out towards Emuel.
None of this seemed right to Silus. This wasn’t the same song that had once empowered the Llothriall. Why couldn’t any of them see that?
Ignacio, though, seemed to have an inkling. He ran up to Emuel and shook him hard.
“This is not the time!” he shouted. “Emuel, snap out of it, something is coming.”
And, indeed, something was. There was a darkness gathering on the horizon, moving swiftly and silently towards them.
Emuel did not stop. Something else added its voice to the song as, above them, Kerberos began to sing.
“Katya, I said go!” Silus shouted.
This time she acknowledged him and hurried below.
The darkness had arisen on all sides of the Llothriall. The small circle of sea on which they sat was beginning to rapidly shrink, and the only ones who seemed to be doing anything about it were Dunsany and Ignacio. They rushed about the deck, trying to ready the ship to escape this new threat.
But there was nowhere to go.
Silus to reach out to Kerberos, but there was no response from his god.
The darkness closed on the Llothriall, the song died and then they were falling.
With a terrific bang, Brother Sequilious was flung onto his back as a wall of ice-cold water crashed over him. There was the burn of salt at the back of his throat and he floundered on the cavern floor for a moment, before he realised that he was not drowning.
As he got to his feet an octopus dropped to the ground, its tentacles uncoiling from his thigh. All around him, fish littered the floor, mouths gaping as they drowned in the air. There was a strange smell about him; a smell that made the sorcerer’s balls shrivel in fear — the smell of magic gone wrong. He turned to the lake to see just how wrong.
He had retrieved the Llothriall, albeit only half of it. The broken ship sat a while on the lake, before beginning to keel over. He got a brief glimpse into the interior as water flooded in. Cabins had been sheared in half, spilling shattered furniture and broken cargo. The sorcerer thought that he saw a body hit the water as the ship sank. Soon, only a curve of the hull was visible. In despair, Brother Sequilious began to wade into the lake, desperate to salvage anything from his disastrous summoning attempt. But as the cold water rose above his thighs, he knew that it was useless. He had lost Katherine Makennon her greatest prize.