The Prophecy Machine

5

With the setting of the sun, the sea had changed from a very pleasant blue to a most unseemly green. The wind was up, having its way, blowing from the south for a moment, then shifting to the west. Crossways, sideways, this way and that. All this mischief played havoc with the Madeline Rose. The crew would get the sails set properly, the wind would swiftly change, and howling, hissing, knocking one another about, they'd swarm into the rigging once again.

Captain Magreet stood on his quarterdeck shaking his fists, cursing the crew as the crew cursed him, shouting out orders that changed from one moment to the next.

“In for bit of a blow, are we, Captain?” Finn asked. “Smells like rain to me.”

“Ah, does it now?” Magreet sent him a withering look. “So you're a master of gizzards, and a master of storms as well?”

“Lizards, it is. And I meant no disrespect, sir. It was merely an effort to be polite.”

Magreet spat a gobbet at the deck. “Well, take your bloody manners somewhere else. I've no use for them here.”

“Indeed,” Finn said, “I can see, at the moment, you're somewhat distracted. I appreciate that.”

The captain turned and stomped away, mumbling to himself. Finn walked forward past the great mainmast, which was thick as an ancient tree.

There was no one else on deck, no passengers, at least. That suited Finn fine. He didn't need company, especially the unfriendly Nucci, and the pair of scarecrows. And, to be honest, he didn't want to be with Letitia for a spell.

As ever, he chided himself for such a thought. Though he knew it wasn't so, he could not abide the idea that he might, as so many others did, harbor some small intolerance for what Letitia's folk had been.

It was not the wisest thing a man could do, falling in love with his Newlie housekeeper, taking her for a wife. Not in legal terms, of course, for what he'd done was a felony, a criminal act, one that could cause a careless man to lose his head. Everyone knew there were men-and very likely women too-who had quite intimate relations with one of the Newlie kind. No one said anything about it, of course; one simply looked the other way.

On the whole, Finn had to admit, beasts should never have been changed into men. It was no great favor to the world, and a tragedy to the creatures themselves. He thought of the sad, sometimes hopeless look in Letitia's dark eyes: a look that held the sorrows and the fears all her kind brought with them from the past.

Letitia was mostly a woman, and a breathtaking woman at that, but she would always be a part of what she'd been. Her kind were not animals now, but they would never, ever be human.

Shar and Dankermain, the great seers who'd cast that unholy spell three hundred years past, had paid very dearly for their crime, for the sin of creating the Nine. Why they did such a deed went with them to the grave, but the spawn of their magic was left behind.

And why, the thought came to Finn, as it often did at such a time, why did you do the same? What's your reason, Master Finn?

He had asked himself the question a hundred times past, for he, like the two mad seers, had broken a law of nature himself, giving life and reason to a thing of brass and tin. Given his creation the brain of a ferret, a poor creature caught in a trap and nearly dead.

And why? For much the same reason, he supposed, that the rebel magicians had crossed the line themselves. Though his was no act of magic, he, like the seers, had done what he did because he had the art-because he had the talent, because he had the flair. He had dared the act of creation simply because he could.

The wind was high now, snapping, cracking in the sails, whining through the shrouds, scattering foam atop enormous dark waves. The sailors, Finn noted, had set cheap weather amulets and charms in the rigging-a rattle of bones, strings of shiny stones, pots, pans, bundles of colored sticks, bloodwood dolls and dead leather toads.

And even above the shriek of the wind, the captain, legs set as solidly against the deck as if they'd sprouted there, could be heard yelling and cursing at his horrid crew.

“Set the headsails!”

“Man the halliards!”

“Keelhaul the bos'n!”

“Get aloft there!”

“Let fly the jib!”

That, Finn imagined, or something wholly different, he couldn't say for sure. It all sounded quite the same to him.

By the time he reached his quarters, the storm was full upon them-a gale, a blow, a raging hurricane, a loud and frightful thing that tossed the ship about like a stick of rotten wood.

Still, Letitia stayed fast asleep. Fear and exhaustion had finally brought her down. And, in a corner of the cabin he could see Julia there, two ruby flares of light, crimson points of fire in the night.

Slipping off his clothes, he slid in gently beside Letitia and took her in his arms. She made little sounds in her sleep, and curled into him like a spoon. Her warmth, her touch, the satin feel of flesh next to his nearly set him afire. He desperately wanted her then, to fully share their love, to light the passion between them.

Instead he held her, let her sleep, touched the tiny pulse in her breasts, listened to her breathe. He was certain he couldn't sleep, sure he'd have to stare at the ceiling all night, listening to the shriek of the storm. All of which he did for a minute-or a minute and a half.

Something brought him up out of sleep, he couldn't say what. The storm was weaker now, but the Madeline Rose still bobbed about.

Voices. Out in the passageway. Two or three people, maybe four. He pulled on his trousers and opened the door. Three men stood there, two short and one tall, passengers he might have seen before.

“What is it,” he asked, “what's going on here?”

“Someone's come up missing, can't find him anywhere,” the short man said, squinting past Finn to see if he kept the pretty Newlie in his bed.

“Who? What are you talking about?” He blocked the man's way, came out and shut the door. “Missing from where?”

“That young Foxer,” one of the others said. “The one that got hurt up there.”

Finn felt a chill in his heart. No. Make it not so …

“Aren't you the one makes blizzards? The fellow got the tar beat out of him today? Say, weren't you-”

Finn was already gone. He took the steps topside four at a time. Suddenly, the captain was there at the top of the hatchway, his bulky figure in the way.

“I'm not needing your help here, Master Finn,” Magreet said, “Get on back where you belong.”

“Who did it?” Finn demanded. “Those skinny lawyers or that devil Sabatino, which?”

“Damn you, mister, you're not listening to me!”

“Get out of my way, Captain.”

“Or what, sir? If I do not, sir, what might you do then?”

In a flash of faraway lightning, Finn saw the captain's eyes. No rage, no fury, no feeling at all, only cold determination and will. More than that, he was suddenly aware that there was a pistol, a nasty-looking weapon with a bell-shaped muzzle, clutched in Magreet's heavy hand.

“Now, Master Finn, if you'd go back down as I said …”

“Don't go any further with this,” Finn said. “Don't point a weapon at me.”

Magreet, showing no expression at all, raised his pistol and pressed the muzzle against Finn's chest. Finn heard the cold, distinct sound of a metal hammer drawing back. He knew, in that instant, that under that ridiculous hat there was still a pompous fool, but one who would just as soon kill a man as swat a bothersome fly.

“I don't feel I can reason with you,” Finn said. “I don't think you're in a rational state of mind.”

“I think you'd be right on both counts, Master Finn,” the captain said. “I'm near certain that you are …”

He sat in the dark in a chair against the cabin's outer bulkhead, near the sound of the churning sea. He was certain he wouldn't sleep now. He felt no anger, no shame in backing down from Magreet. The man was an elemental force, like the very storm itself. The sea and the wind didn't think, they simply did. And that, Finn reasoned, was how the captain stayed alive, how he kept his crew of nasties from killing him in his sleep.

The fury, the rage, the sorrow in Finn's heart was for the death of the Foxer boy. Whoever had done the deed had simply tossed the lad away, like a thing no longer useful, a tool, a device, a thing that didn't work anymore. What a thoughtless, chilling thing to do! And, in the world Finn lived in, not a shocking act at all.

After giving the matter thought, Finn believed the couple who'd held the boy had brought about his death. They were the ones who'd worked him until he was useful no more. Sabatino Nucci would toss a Newlie away without a blink, but he had no reason to do so.

It didn't matter who'd done the deed, it was done. For an instant, Letitia's face replaced the image of the boy in Finn's mind. With a shudder, he quickly swept the terrible picture away …

He could not recall how long he'd been sitting there, whether he'd been awake, whether he'd slept or dreamt. He couldn't say what compelled him to stand, pull himself up and peer through the small porthole in the cabin wall.

It was there, or it was not, he couldn't truly tell-a great, black vessel, a vessel so big, so dark, it swallowed the very sea and sky itself. Yet for all its size, it made no sound at all. And even though it seemed a massive thing, it was clear to Finn that it had no bulk, no weight of any kind. It was plainly a spectral craft, a vessel of shadows, a ship with skeletal masts and tattered sails, a chill and hollow vessel, as cold as death itself.

And if Finn needed further assurance that no living creature sailed upon this craft, a dead man raised a wispy arm from that cold quarterdeck, and sent a ghostly greeting across the dark sea …