Mariners of Gor

Chapter Thirteen

I looked about.

“It is an odd ship,” I said to Tarl Cabot.

We had clambered aboard the vessel, from a small ship’s boat, cutting through the masses of snarled, ropelike, blossomed vines which encircled it, covering it, almost obscuring it. It was one of several such derelicts we had noted, resting variously in the sea, a pasang or two apart. We did not know how many such vessels might lie trapped in this place, in this welter of tangled, blossoming growth which stretched far about us. At first, from several hundred yards away, we had thought them only inexplicable mounds in the sea, hills of flowers uncannily forced upward by the riot of growth, vines upon vines. Then we learned the tendrils had clasped and climbed, and covered the works of men. The odor of these enormous fields of growth, alive, rocking and swaying in the sea, with their ubiquitous, massive blossoms, yellow, and purple, which had struck me one night some weeks ago as so pervasive, striking, and unpleasant, was doubtless as physically present as ever, but, interestingly, one now scarcely noticed it, excepting with an effort of attention. The odor, in time, became a lulling odor, and, no longer noted, but invariably present, tended to produce a sense of lethargy.

“Not really,” said Cabot. “It is only different.”

It had a high stem-castle, and two fixed masts. It was a round ship, of sorts, a vessel not made for war. Surely there was no ram, no shearing blades, no sockets for fixing catapults or springals. It would move solely under sail. There were no oar decks. It was somewhat larger than a medium galley. What most struck me was the battening, the sail-reinforcing ribbing, to which clung the shreds of matting.

“I wonder how long it has it been here,” I said.

“It is hard to say,” said Cabot. “A hundred years, perhaps two hundred.”

“That is long,” I said.

“The hull,” he said, “is bored by ship worms, and rotted. The deck is split and the boards shrunk. Were it not for the clasp of the foliage, suspending her, she may have disappeared long ago.”

He punched downward with the heel of his sea boot and the board broke under the blow, revealing a brown, spongelike mass of fiber.

This was the first time I had been on one of the derelicts, but they were not unknown to many of our armsmen and mariners who had boarded them to loot the cabins and the dozens of small holds, or compartments, in each, which, at one time, though now half flooded, may have been watertight. The sea chests of many of our fellows were now heavy with pierced coins, pearls, and precious stones.

Few skeletons had been found on the derelicts, which suggested that men, perhaps in madness or desperation, had somehow fled these strange fields or perished in the sea.

The strange ships were flat-bottomed, and so could navigate rivers, perhaps by poling or towing, and shallow waters, as well as the sea. Several, on the other hand, possessed daggerboards, which, by means of a slot in the hull, might be raised or lowered, these, when lowered, providing greater stability in open water. But all, however fitted, had been arrested here, tangled in the growth.

One could almost walk upon the vines, but one could draw a small ship’s boat, or raft, through them, hoping eventually to reach free water.

The mystery of the parsit was solved, of course, as this wilderness of efflorescent plant life in the sea, floating like a vast park of life, drew myriads of small creatures, and these would draw the parsit, and the parsit would draw the shark, the grunt, and the unusual tharlarion.

So there was no reason to believe that we were near shore.

This growth, called the Vine Sea, is unanchored.

Lord Nishida’s and Lord Okimoto’s course, given to Aetius and Tersites, had intended to skirt the Vine Sea by a hundred pasangs, but the Vine Sea moves, obedient to wind and current, and it was apparently far beyond its usual haunts. Lord Nishida’s distress, weeks ago, at night, was occasioned by the perfume of the Vine Sea, which informed him that the ship had come upon it, he recognizing the full horror of its hazard. The obstinacy of Tersites, a fair wind, and a fortuitous canal opening in the vines had allowed the ship to proceed too far, in the darkness, and then, the wind failing, the Vine Sea had closed about her, tendrils reaching to her timbers. Men on ropes, in shifts, for days now, had scraped and tore away the tendrils which had begun to clutch at the hull, and sought to climb it, as Tur-Pah the Tur tree.

I brushed away insects, hovering about.

So the mystery of the parsit had been solved.

Most of us took it as well that the mystery of the light, that which Leros had first seen, from the platform and ring, was solved. That was seemingly solved on the second night. What had seemed a single blaze in the darkness, far off, was now attributed to the luminescence of a gigantic swarm of lamp flies, in their hundreds of thousands, of which swarms, we later learned, here in the Vine Sea, there were several. This sort of thing usually occurs when a ship is offshore, say a pasang or so, and in the vicinity of Bazi or Schendi.

I did not know why Tarl Cabot had come to this ship, as there were others. Why this ship and not another? I did know that he and Lord Nishida had surveyed it, from a ship’s boat, this morning, as they had others, on other mornings, with the glass of the Builders.

What was special about this ship?

Certainly it had already been looted, its four cabins and its many smaller holds, or compartments.

Aetius had kept Tersites sequestered in his cabin, fearing to let him be seen on deck. The crew, and the armsmen, might kill him. Always were they uneasy in the presence of the shipwright, fearing his eccentricities, the strangeness of his mind, the unpredictable and erratic exercises of his power, his officious negligence and scorn of customary precautions and ceremonies, his omission of traditional offerings, placations, and petitions, his pride, his insolence, his defiance, his seemingly gratuitous challenge to mighty Thassa, a challenge, as it were, to war, pitting his ship, a splendid artifact, but no more, against vast, deep, surgent, capricious, mighty Thassa. It was clearly his command which had sped the great ship forward in the darkness, despite the warnings of Lord Nishida, with the consequence that she was now trapped, mired in growth, bound fast in thick, living cordage, bound in the garden of the Vine Sea, surely one of the most dangerous and beautiful of Thassa’s gardens. Of what value were riches if one could not spend them, and one were to die in place, amidst heaps of treasure, the richest and poorest of men.

Cabot, carefully, began to climb one of the ship’s two masts. It was some forty feet in height, and surmounted by what I took, despite its unusual appearance, bowl-like, but with a grated cover, to be a ship’s lamp or lantern.

He soon attained the summit of the mast.

He was grinning. He gestured to me. “Come up!” he said.

I slowly made my way up the mast, hort by hort, and was then beside the tarnsman.

“Here,” he said, “are no lamp flies.” He rubbed his hand about the grating of the lamp, or lantern. His hand was dark with soot. He thrust up the grating on its hinge, and, clinging to the mast with one hand, wiped his other hand within the bowl, and his hand, withdrawn, was moist, and glistened where soot had been rubbed away. He held his hand out to me. I could smell oil, probably from tharlarion.

“It is fresh,” I said.

“Fresh enough,” he smiled.

“But the ship, I thought,” I said, “was a century or more old.”

“It is,” he said, “at least.”

“But this lamp,” I said, “has been fired, surely within the year.”

“When, do you think?” he asked.

“When Leros held the high watch,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. He then closed the hinged, gratelike lid on the lamp, and began to descend the mast. And I followed him.

We were soon again on the deck of the strange ship. Our small ship’s boat, with four oarsmen, was tied alongside.

I looked at the tarnsman.

“Lord Nishida was right,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

I knew that the tarnsman and Lord Nishida had scouted several derelicts, surveying them with the glass of the Builders.

“Lord Nishida,” he said, “has lost the element of surprise.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“We are expected,” said Tarl Cabot. “The lamp was set as a beacon, to lure us into the Vine Sea, where doubtless it is hoped we will die.”

“This is the end,” I said. “None escape from here. Note the derelicts. Many brave ships with their crews have perished in this place. There is no escape, there is no wind.”

“Yet,” said Cabot, “the beacon was lit, and those who set the trap are gone. There is thus an exit from this place.”

“Perhaps with small boats, with rafts, or such,” I said, “but then one is defenseless on Thassa, perhaps a thousand pasangs from land, perhaps more.”

I supposed, if Lord Nishida and the tarnsman were right, that a mother ship at the edge of the Vine Sea might have dispatched a small party to the derelict. What puzzled me was that such a ship had not been seen, even from the high watch. Perhaps, unlit, it had approached at night and set a small crew about the business of the lamp. Or perhaps we had enemies amongst us, forewarned, from months ago, even from Brundisium, or the northern forests, who would fail to report such a sighting. Had helmsmen failed to keep the charted course? The Vine Sea moves, like a vast garden in the sea, but perhaps it had not moved as much as had been thought.

“Think, Callias,” said Cabot. “Few bodies, on any derelict, have been found.”

“Most would have sought some sort of flight from the Vine Sea,” I said.

“I think so,” he said, “and certainly as supplies of fresh water grew scarce.”

“Much treasure was left behind,” I said.

“Perhaps,” said he, “much was taken, as well.”

“Would men not return for the rest?” I asked.

“It seems likely they failed to reach land,” he said.

“Then,” I said, “the Vine Sea is victorious, in the end.”

“The lighters of the beacon have come and gone,” he said.

“Why would they not loot the derelicts?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” said he, “some things interest them more, and, too, there is little hurry about such matters.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Our mariners, and armsmen,” he said, “have spent days here, accumulating treasure.”

“So?” I said.

“Would it not cost blood to deny them their gold?” asked Cabot.

I remembered the mutiny.

“I think so,” I said.

“Lord Nishida thinks we are being held in place,” he said, “whilst a fleet is moving toward us.”

“There is no escape from here,” I said, and I swept my hand toward the horizon.

“Clearly some have failed to escape,” said Cabot.

“There is no hope,” I said.

“Consider the derelicts you have seen,” said Cabot. “None is larger than a medium-class galley, and none is oared.”

“True,” I said. It seemed so to me, at any rate, from what I had seen.

“And the ships are merchant ships, apparently, and, one supposes, would be crewed accordingly, with complements sufficient to the vessel, and perhaps little beyond that.”

“So?” I said.

“I see no large ships here,” said Cabot. “A large ship, with many in the crew, could work the vines, even over days, or weeks, cutting a path. Too, a large ship, with the force of the wind in her sails, might tear herself loose.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I said.

“A fresh wind,” he said, “might clear the air.”

I noted, again, the perfume of the garden, so sweet, pervasive, and heavy. I wondered if it did not have its role to play in this strange place. I could see two other derelicts from where I stood, smothered in flowers. “The flowers are beautiful,” I said.

“And perhaps deadly,” said Cabot.

“A slow poison?” I said.

“Let us hope not,” he said.

Two men had thrown themselves from the bulwarks of the great ship, screaming, into the vines below.

Men had looted one another’s sea chests openly, and then died in the corridors and companionways.

Two warriors of the Pani, which groups had not participated in the looting, had slain one another, which, given the custom of their discipline, was unthinkable.

“We cannot wait here indefinitely,” said Cabot.

“We must try to break free?” I said.

“Why has it not been attempted?” asked Cabot.

“The looting, the danger?” I said.

“The looting was done, days ago,” said Cabot, “at least of the ships conveniently accessible.”

“The flowers?” I said.

“I think so,” said Cabot.

“They are beautiful,” I said.

“Yes,” said Cabot. “They are beautiful.” He then went to the rail, and lowered himself to the waiting ship’s boat, and I followed him.