The Crystal Seas

Chapter FOUR

A strong west wind pushed Mistress homeward at a good two hundred miles a day, fast sailing for such a clumsy and heavily laden ship. She was not the most comfortable ship to travel in. But for Blade, the greatest discomfort was his inability to find out much more about what he was sailing into-the war, the two peoples engaged in it, and the Empire of Nurn.

The crew was either too busy to talk to him or unable to give him more than vague impressions of what was going on. He learned from them that the merpeople-the Fishmen-were a hated but also respected foe-tough, brave, highly skilled both in organizing large battles and in individual combat. On the average they were smaller than the Talgarans, but fast and strong. Apparently they could live out of water for hours at a stretch, although they lost strength if they stayed in the air too long. On the other hand, the people of Talgar could attack the merpeople in their native depths only with breathing gear. So neither side could really carry large-scale warfare into the home of the other. The war was an affair of ambushes, raids, and attacks on City ships and Fishman settlements, little affairs individually, but scores of them each year added up to a considerable toll in lost men and lost ships for both sides. However, the war was part of the natural scheme of things, as costly as it was.

Nobody who had heard of Svera's opposition group, the Conciliators, had a good word to say for them. They were considered either mad or treacherous, and in either case ought to be shut up if they started making real trouble.

Blade would have liked very much to talk with the ship's officers. But they would talk with him about anything else but politics and the war. The way they changed the subject when he tried to pump them, he suspected they had orders from Captain Foyn. No doubt the captain regretted having exposed so much of the affairs of the Sea Cities to a stranger and was trying to lock the barn door after the sea horse was stolen.

Svera did not speak to Blade at all, and he noticed that she found it hard to meet his eyes. No more searching looks at him, that was certain, and no more bouts at night, either. Blade didn't much miss the first, but he rather regretted losing the second. He and Svera had done marvelously well, going to bed for politics. If they decided to go to bed for fun- But Svera obviously wasn't going to risk giving Blade another chance to find out what was on her mind.

As she sailed toward the Sea Cities, Mistress sailed over waters now more blue than green. But the ocean was as crystal-clear as it had been closer to shore. Blade could still see down two hundred feet or more into the depths, and spent hours by the railing looking down through the waves. He saw schools of fish of all colors and sizes. He saw large predatory fish that dashed in among those schools and broke them up in blood and flashing fins. Once he saw one of the great sea reptiles, the yulon. But apparently the size of the ship frightened the creature away. It glided off and away, making no effort to approach Mistress.

What Blade was looking for more than anything else was what he never saw. He never saw any of the merpeople or any signs that they even existed. Admittedly, the ocean was wide, and the merpeople seldom attacked a ship in the deep waters between Nurn and Talgar. As the days wore on, Blade became more and more impatient for the ships arrival at the Sea Cities.

On the morning of the sixth day, Blade was awakened by a gentle knock on his cabin door. He didn't bother to reach for his dagger this time before shouting, «Come in!»

It was Svera, carrying a wooden tray with thick slabs of dried fish and an omelet of seabirds' eggs steaming on it. Blade raised an eyebrow.

«Breakfast in bed?»

«Why not?» She seemed to be trying to keep a light note in her voice, but it wasn't working, at least not for Blade. He could see that the strain was back in her eyes, the strain now become almost desperation.

Blade grinned nonetheless. «I seem to remember what happened the last time you and I started exchanging questions like this.» Every inch of Svera's visible skin blushed pink, and she closed her eyes for a moment. A pink tongue crept out to moisten her full lips.

Blade didn't say anything, but reached out and took Svera's hand. The dishes clattered on the tray as her hands shook slightly. Blade smiled. Svera smiled back, faintly and uncertainly. He could see the strain beginning to fade from her eyes and her breath coming quicker. His touch was awakening memories. Perhaps this time they could-

The roar of a fast-beaten drum blasted into Blade's ears. Svera stiffened, wide-eyed. The blast of a trumpet blown long and harshly followed. Then came Captain Foyn's voice, roaring out at the top of his lungs.

«Battle call, battle call! All hands arm at once!»

Blade jumped out of bed and snatched his clothes up off the deck. The tray clattered on the planks as Svera rose and was out the door before Blade could get his trousers on. Barefoot and shirtless, he followed her out into the passageway, then out on deck, buckling on his sword as he ran.

The ship sailed sluggishly forward, her sails slack, over an oily swell shrouded in a mist that cut visibility to a few miles. Every man aboard seemed to be swarming out onto the main deck. Most of them were carrying weapons-swords, heavy crossbows, throwing spears. Others were opening lockers tied along the railings and hauling out large, weighted nets. Up on the forecastle stood four men waving tridents with ten-foot wooden handles and footlong spikes. They looked too clumsy for anything except impaling fish-or Fishmen, Blade realized.

He swore out loud. Before he had a chance to find out anything more about the merpeople, he was going to wind up fighting them! A damnably frustrating mess! But he didn't have any choice, if he didn't want to be considered a madman or a coward.

Captain Foyn scrambled down the ladder from the quarterdeck, waving a long rapier in his left hand. He came up to Blade and laughed bitterly.

«Take a look over to port, friend. That's Fishman work, though they've seldom struck this far west. If they're still around, may the Silver Goddess protect us!»

Blade looked in the direction Foyn was pointing. Off to port, three waterlogged boats lurched slowly to the swell. They were all about forty feet long, high at bow and stern, with the broken stump of a single mast visible amidships. As Mistress drew closer, it was obvious the three boats had been looted thoroughly. Everything movable that might have been aboard was gone-except the bodies of the crews.

There had been three or four people aboard each boat. Fishermen, Blade suspected. Now it was impossible to tell what they had been and hard to tell how many they had been. The killers-the merpeople-had slashed and hacked at the bodies until they were a mangled mess-headless, disembowelled, limbs and genitals missing or mutilated. One body looked as if it had been bitten clean in two. Blade's eyes could also make out that entire sections of railing and deck looked as though they had been ripped or chewed away, by gigantic sharp-toothed jaws.

Blade wasn't the only one who saw those marks, who suspected what they might mean, and who didn't like it at all. He saw Captain Foyn's bearded jaw harden. He heard a babble of nervous voices rising from one end of Mistress to the other, as men pointed and stared.

«Fishmen work, all right. Raiders, though. No prisoners, so-«

«Hunh. Even if there were a thousand of them, they wouldn't be taking prisoners. They're so far west, they-«

«A thousand of them!» in a panicky squall. «Oh, Silver Goddess, have-«

A smack, of an open palm slapping flesh, and the panicky squalling broke off suddenly.

«Enough gabbling like seafowl!» roared Foyn, in a voice that spread a sudden silence from one end of the ship to the other. «The fishermen are beyond our help, may the Goddess have mercy on them. We will remember them in our Thank Prayers to her, when we reach the Cities. And they are not beyond our vengeance, if the Fishmen are still about. We will leave off battle call for now, but all men will continue to go armed until I order otherwise. I-«

«Sail ho!» came down from the crow's nest.

«Where away?» called Foyn.

«Dead ahead,» shouted the lookout. «Looks Eke Duln's Gainful.» Silence while everyone stared toward the masthead, as though they expected the other ship to materialize there. Only Blade and Captain Foyn kept their eyes ahead, trying to pierce through the haze and make out the Gainful. Yes, there was something out there in the grayness. A ship very much like Mistress, in fact. She didn't seem to be moving, though. She-

Blade and Foyn and the lookout saw it in the same moment. «Gainful's on fire!» came a half-hysterical scream from the masthead. Foyn started so violently that his rapier clattered to the deck, and he and Blade stared ahead. Yes, black smoke was suddenly curling up from between Gainful's masts.

«She's under attack,» said Foyn. «The Fishmen are still about.» He raised his voice again. «All hands-we're going to aid Duln and his crew. Topmen aloft to take out all reefs. Sweepmen, man all sweeps. Fore and aft guards, keep a sharp lookout there! Archers to the lookouts.» The scene of suspended animation on Mistress's deck dissolved in a flash, as forty-odd men ran to obey Foyn's orders. Discipline aboard the Sea Cities' merchant ships seemed almost military in its thoroughness.

Blade and Foyn ran forward, to join the men with tridents by the base of the bowsprit. Svera would have joined them, but Foyn clamped a hand on her shoulder and pointed aft. «You've refused the woman's training, so you've no place in this battle. Go below, so two good men won't have to waste their time trying to protect you.» Svera glared at her father but obeyed.

Foyn shook his head. «More of her fancies. We give the woman's training so our wives and daughters can help defend the ships and boats. But the women of Svera's mind won't take it. Think it means accepting the war against the Fishmen. As though the war were our fault! But then they won't stay safe at home, either, but will travel out to sea just like the trained women.» Foyn threw his hands wide in a gesture of despair and disgust, then looked ahead again. The black smoke was rising more thickly now. «She's heavily afire. If they can hold on until we can get there, maybe-«The rattle and bang of the sweeps running out made him break off. He sprang down to the main deck again and ran aft toward the hatch to the hold, leaving Blade and the fore guard to stare at the coiling smoke.

There wasn't enough wind for the extra sail area to make much difference to Mistress. But as the six long sweeps on either side settled down to a steady rhythm, the heavily loaded ship slowly began to pick up speed. The bang of the sweeps in their holes and the rattle of the chains that held them in place echoed all around the ship. So did the swelling gurgle of water at her bluff bow.

If Captain Foyn had wanted to drive the men at the sweeps to their full speed, he could have closed the gap to the stricken Gainful much faster. But he would have risked reaching the other ship and perhaps the merpeople with his own men too exhausted to fight even in defense of their own ship. He would do much to save a Brother, but not risk throwing away his own ship.

However, slowly the gap was closing. By now Blade could faintly smell the smoke curling up from Gainful. By straining his eyes, he could even make out fast-moving figures on her smoke-shrouded decks. And he could make out others, paler than normal, scrambling up her sides. The merpeople were boarding her already. Blade began to wonder if Mistress would come up with the other ship before the merpeople not only did their worst on her but fled away unscathed into the depths of the sea.

The only warning Blade had was a sudden splashing under Mistress's bow, louder than any bow wave. He stiffened and drew his sword. One of the fore guard stepped to the railing and looked over the side, his trident held ready to strike. Then he sprang back from the railing and spun around, his mouth open and his face working in horror.

Before the scream could come out, one of the yulons rose monstrous and dripping alongside, right among the portside sweeps. The heavy wood cracked and splintered. Screams sounded from below decks as the weighted inboard ends of the sweeps lashed about like great clubs. Men began pouring up from below, with shouts and a clatter of footsteps. Some of them were limping or bloody. Mistress began to lose way and come around in a circle as the starboard sweeps dragged her along.

Then a second yulon rose to starboard, even closer to the ship's side. More sweeps heaved upward; more screams came up from below. This time Blade could clearly see the heavy woven reins leading to a heavy harness around the creature's neck and head.

Blade found that he suddenly had no more qualms about fighting the merpeople-the Fishmen. At least not here and now. Here and now they were doing their best to kill him. He would do his best to stay alive.

He strode over to the starboard railing of the forecastle, shoving his way between two half-paralyzed trident men. His hand closed on a spear lying on the deck, lifted it, tested its balance. Then the spear was hurtling through the air, down into the sea. He aimed it where he could now clearly see the two Fishmen on the back of the great reptile, and aimed it true. The spear vanished into the water with a hiss and a flicker of silver bubbles. A moment later there was a frantically thrashing body drifting away from the reptile, and the crystal seas were stained dark with gushing blood. The yulon reared back, then sank out of sight.

But the other one still had its riders in control. It heaved itself up with a mighty hissing and grunting, until the fanged head on its long neck came swooping down over the railing. It caught one of the men emerging from below before he could lift a weapon, hoisted him into the air, and dropped him over the side with a splash and a scream. Captain Foyn ran out of the sterncastle, sword waving, hurling curses at the thing that had taken one of his men. He stood his ground, legs wide apart, as the yulon swung its head toward him. He did not waste his rapier's point on the armorthick scales, but thrust for the eyes. The creature twisted its head to one side, knocking down two sailors. But the bosun remained on his feet, to thrust a trident into the creature's exposed throat. Driven in with all the bosun's enormous strength, the trident smashed through the scales into the flesh.

Blood gushed out around the prongs, and the monster's scream of pain changed to a hissing gurgle. Its head wavered uncertainly, splintering a long section of railing as it rocked back and forth. Then Captain Foyn thrust again, and this time the yulon's head did not draw back in time. The rapier plunged in through the right eye until it was buried halfway up to its hilt in the creature's brain.

With a crash like a falling mast, the creature slammed down on Mistress's deck, splintering more railing and crushing one of the fallen men, screaming against the planks. One of the archers fired a bolt into its skull at point-blank range. Another suddenly aimed over the side and let fly. His bolt smacked into the pale head of one of the creature's riders, incautiously lifted into the air for a moment. Blade saw more blood spreading in a cloud through the crystal seas.

Only now, with their two trained yulons dead or driven off, did the free-swimming Fishmen launch their attack. If they had been able to come in on Mistress when her crew was paralyzed or distracted by the great reptiles, they could have been all over her in minutes. But Blade realized that the use of the trained yulons must be a new method of fighting for the Fishmen as well as for their enemies. «Still a few bugs in their system,» thought Blade with a savage grin. Then he settled down to the long fight against the swimmers.

It was a long fight indeed. For a time Blade wondered why the Fishmen simply didn't drill holes in Mistress's hull and wait until she sank under her crew. The bosun supplied the answer to that.

«Double hull below the waterline,» he said. «Cement lining between the two hulls. Couldn't get through it, not unless they took a week and a few big hammers and chisels. Even then we'd take maybe a barrel of water an hour. Mop it up with a sponge.»

So Mistress would be staying afloat then. The best the attackers could hope for was to board her, loot her, and slaughter the crew, then set her on fire the way they had Gainful. Blade spared a glance for the ship they had been coming to rescue. There would be no rescuing her now; she was on fire from stem to stern. As Blade watched, her foremast toppled over the side in a shower of sparks and an explosion of steam that he heard across the miles between. Then he had to turn back to the fight raging around Mistress.

It was a nightmarish battle, but for long stretches, a strangely bloodless one. The ship's crew could fight from above against attackers coming from below, but those attackers could retreat into the sea any time they chose. The ship's crew was always exposed to attack, but they could run from place to place aboard Mistress faster than the enemy could swim around her. Only by accident could either side kill. Blade and the rest of Mistress's crew spent most of the battle crouching behind the railings. The Fishmen spent most of the battle lurking below the surface, not invisible but almost invulnerable.

Almost. At odd intervals a crewman would leap to his feet, sight down into the water, and hurl his trident over the side. Most of the time nothing happened except a splash and darting shapes. But once a trident caught one of those darting shapes. A bubbling scream and a spreading cloud of blood drifted up from below the surface. The Fishman rose to the surface, clawing with pale arms at the trident teeth impaling him, screamed in agony and hatred, then sank out of sight as the sailor pulled his trident back in.

Another time a sailor rose to throw a spear, but he rose too high and stayed too long. The snap of a crossbow echoed across the water, and the sailor shot backward from the railing, dropping his spear. His eyes were wide as they stared down at the bolt driven through his chest. Then he slumped to the deck and the staring eyes closed forever. But the heavy Fishman crossbows were large and clumsy, and they could only be fired accurately from the surface. Any Fishman surfacing within range of Mistress's archers risked a returning bolt through him.

Some of them were still willing to run the risk, and for some of them it paid off. Wads of phosphorus came arching over the railing onto the ship's deck, trailing smoke and flame. Dry planking and tarred ropes offered fuel to the flames. But Captain Foyn had placed buckets of sand and powdered coral all over the decks. A bucket quickly emptied onto the fireballs, a hiss, and then there would be nothing but a cloud of pungent smoke drifting away to mix with the mist.

Other Fishmen threw three-pronged hooks on long cords, hoping to snag sailors and drag them over the side or make pathways up the ship's side for themselves. One hook did catch around a sailor's neck, but Blade dashed forward and swung his sword down as the rope began to tighten. The rope whipped back over the side with a splash; the hook fell to the deck with a clatter.

As the bosun helped the bleeding sailor away, another hook came sailing up onto the deck. Blade grabbed it as the rope began to tighten and gave a tremendous heave. From over the side there was a splash and a surprised yell as the Fishman at the other end was hauled above the surface. Then there came a whick and a scream as one of the archers drilled the target. Blade peered over the railing, watching the dying merman drift away, writhing slowly, blood trickling from his mouth. No-her mouth. The latest casualty was a woman. Small-boned and small-breasted, but unmistakable. She drifted away, her hair floating out behind her.

A shout from the bosun behind Blade made him turn. Off to port, something was approaching Mistress under the water but moving as fast as a speedboat. Then Blade saw three fanged heads lift above the water. Another attack by the yulons? Blade saw some of the sailors turn pale at the thought.

But apparently the new arrivals were only a team drawing something like an underwater chariot. They slowed, then stopped and sank out of sight. Where they had been the water suddenly came alive with the heads of Fishmen, twenty or thirty of them. Then those too vanished. Blade stared down onto the main deck and saw that the dead reptile was still caught along the starboard side. Suddenly he realized where the new attack was going to come.

«Archers! Get ready to fire along that-«he roared, pointing and waving his arms. Then he took a running leap down onto the main deck, snatching up a fallen spear as he ran.

He was barely in time. Fifty yards from the ship's side, a cluster of pale heads rose out of the sea, and crossbow bolts whizzed past Blade on either side. Splinters flew from the masts and decks. Then Blade saw a dark cluster of figures approaching the submerged back of the reptile.

«Somebody get an ax!» he shouted. He hurled the spear with all his strength down into the middle of the approaching enemy. The mass broke up. Before they could re-form and continue climbing, four armed sailors ran up. One carried a bow, one a trident; two carried cutlasses. But the man with the bow also had an ax slung at his belt.

Blade snatched the ax and swung it high overhead. An enemy bolt whizzed past him as the ax came down, biting deep into the scales and the flesh of the dead yulon's neck. The whole huge body shook with the force of the blow. Several climbing Fishmen lost balance and splashed into the water. The archer fired, and one of the others clutched at his shoulder and plunged into the water backward. Blade's ax came down again, biting through the massive white vertebrae as well as flesh and scales.

Then he stared down the creature's back at the last enemy still holding on. Beyond any doubt, it was the same woman he had seen off the reef on the coast of Nurn. The high-cheeked face, the wide golden eyes, the lithe but well-fleshed body were all unmistakable. She still wore only her bright red loinguard and fins, but carried a spear in one long-fingered hand and a short-sword in her belt.

It seemed that she also recognized Blade. Her eyes widened, and for a moment it looked as though she would raise the spear and hurl it at him. Then with a graceful twist and dive she leaped from the creature's back into the sea. A bolt plunged through the bubbles in her wake, and Blade stiffened, wondering if she had been hit. Then his ax came down again. With a crackling, slithering noise, the last scales holding the yulon's neck together parted and the severed neck slid over the side, following the body down. Only the head was left aboard Mistress.

The collapse of their strongest attack seemed to take the spirit out of the Fishmen. They drew back almost out of archery range and swam aimlessly around Mistress, just below the surface. Only the woman remained close in, swimming slowly and gracefully, as if daring the sailors to hit her. Occasionally she would turn on her back and mockingly display her superb breasts. Blade hoped she would break off this dangerous game before one of his shipmates got lucky. He himself could no more have shot at her than he could have shot at Svera.

Eventually the woman got tired of her game. With another graceful flip she upended and went arrowing away into the depths. The other Fishmen followed her. There was a final flurry of water as the drivers of the yulon-drawn chariot put their team in motion. Then the seas spread calm and empty around Mistress. For the first time in hours, her crew could sit down in peace, breathe in comfort, and relax.

Blade was still too keyed up to sit down. The fight and the tantalizing glimpse of the woman had left him weary but still excited, frustrated, and curious. He strode up and down the main deck like a caged animal, swinging his eyes around the horizon.

Gainful had now burned almost to the water's edge. There was nothing left of her but a smoldering hulk heaving to the swell. As Blade watched, she dipped still lower. Then a hiss and a cloud of steam rolled across the water. By the time the steam had rolled away, there was no sign of Gainful except a patch of dirty water pocked with wreckage and bubbles.

Now a breeze sprang up. Mistress's sails began to swell out, and the water began to chuckle and gurgle at her bow as she gained way. Slowly her crew came back to life, as the breeze dried the sweat and blood on their skins. They began to move about, cleaning up their ship and counting the losses among their shipmates. Out of a crew of forty men, five were dead, three were dying, and eleven more or less wounded or battered. The only ones who seemed to have any strength left were Captain Foyn, the bosun, and Blade himself. But gradually these three were able to put some of their own energy into the crew.

Two hours after the last merman had vanished into the crystal seas, Blade and Foyn were standing on the forecastle again. Mistress was running before a freshening breeze, heading east for Cities, which now lay only some eighty miles beyond the horizon. But Foyn's face was grim. Grim, that is, for a sailor on his way home. Not grim for a captain who has just lost part of his crew and nearly lost his ship.

What made Foyn particularly grim was not the attack itself as much as the unexpected form of it.

«It's long been thought that the yulons were beyond taming. But the Fishmen seem to have managed it, and without our hearing a single word of it until now. They must have been saving up this surprise for a really big attack. They could have sent hundreds of those monsters and thousands of their warriors into the western seas.» He hesitated, then swallowed. «Perhaps even against the Cities themselves, the Goddess defend us!» He licked weather-beaten lips, then turned to Blade.

«Don't mention any of this to Svera, will you? I don't think she'd pass it on to her friends. But it would frighten her, and I don't want her frightened.»

Blade wished he could believe that. But it was obvious from his tone of voice that Captain Foyn did not entirely trust his daughter. Love her, no doubt, but trust her? It was equally obvious that the voyage to the Sea Cities of Talgar wasn't solving any of the mysteries of this dimension. In fact, it seemed to be adding to them very fast.