Chapter 231
Two ships tearing across the starlit sea side by side, a strip of white wake between them. The Marka: bark-built, grass on her deck, a bell at her bow, a crew of eleven and a golden dog. The Upp Igen: broad and battered, five bands of different-coloured plank down her hull, a bandaged fist at her bow.
at the Marka's bowsprit, hair flying, grinning across the water.
A lanky man in an embroidered waistcoat, leaning at an impossible angle against a backstay, tapping a battered tin three times and flicking one finger at the wind. The Upp Igen's sails fill a notch fuller than the wind should allow.
FLEXSNUS · K-III TESTED (a little higher on Tuesdays) · Scalelist #9,999
at the Marka's rail, recognising something in that lazy flick, frowning.
A hooded woman with an eyepatch and a long brass rifle with a telescope fused into it, one crimson-lit eye pressed to the scope, calling down without looking.
PERNE · K-III TESTED · Scalelist #3,310 · Lookout
hearing that faintly across the water, insulted to his core.
A man the size of a barrel with a beard and a spoon in it, leaning out with a ladle as big as an oar, waving it at the Marka.
ROFFE · K-III TESTED · Scalelist #14,450 · Cook
A wiry man in brass goggles, chalk on his face, sketching a sail in chalk on the deck boards with lightning speed, and a second jib rising from the drawing, solid, catching wind.
JEPPSON · K-III TESTED · Scalelist #12,804 · Shipwright
A small freckled girl, fourteen, bells in her hair, cartwheeling along it, sticking her tongue out at the Marka, and giggling, a bright contagious sound.
TIHI · K-I UNMARKED · Scalelist #812,004 (she thinks this is hilarious)
on the Marka's deck, mid-way through a careful practice-hold, and snorting at the giggle, a beat late, and losing it.
A calm woman in a long moss-green coat with chalk circles round its hem, a thick auburn braid, an ash staff with an iron ring, drawing a chalk circle round the binnacle with the staff's tip.
EMMA · K-IV SHAPED · Scalelist #1,999 · First Mate
A tall, quiet man in a very clean grey coat, steering, one hand raised, palm out, to Flexsnus, who's about to bend something else.
DANIEL · UNASSIGNED (appealed) · Scalelist: UNDER REVIEW
One boot on it, coat of sewn-on patches flapping, both fists bandaged, chipped-tooth grin: Krydog.
KRYDOG · K-IV SHAPED · Scalelist #2,031 · Captain of the Upp Igen
roaring back.
The race, no holds barred, short of sinking each other.
Bror, aimed not at the Upp Igen but behind the Marka, BRA-DOOM, a gold shove into the sea that kicks the Marka forward like a hand on her stern.
Jeppson's chalk jib stops being chalk (one hour up), and the Upp Igen lurches.
Trollmage, asleep on the Marka's deck, mumbles MACRO : WIND = OURS, and the Upp Igen's sails go slack for ten seconds.
Flexsnus bends the Marka's wind a notch weaker. Daniel: "Objection." Flexsnus bends it back. "Thank you."
Rougeina Swaps onto the Upp Igen's deck to cut a halyard, and finds Emma's chalk circle under her feet. Her blade won't make the rope part. "…What?" "Inside my circle nobody gets made to do anything. Including rope." She Swaps back, scowling.
Perne fires one shot, not at anyone, at a wave, and the wave bursts precisely enough to throw spray across the Marka's foresail, slowing her a hair.
on the Marka's bow, barking across the water at the Upp Igen. And on the Upp Igen's bow, Krydog, hearing it, going quiet for one second, looking at the golden dog with a strange, soft look on his scarred face.
beside him, very quietly.
The two ships racing into view of the edge of the world: a vast wall of mist where the Current should go on, and in front of it, rising out of the sea, a black rock and on it a lighthouse 212 steps tall, white-washed, its lantern room blazing. From the lantern, sweeping slowly round over the whole sea like a white-gold blade a hundred leagues long, the Beam. Where it passes over the two ships, a thin silver thread stays behind each of them, running from their bows toward the mist.
at the wheel, staring at the silver thread running from the Marka's bow, his old eyes not watering, not burning, seeing it as clear as a chart line.
on the Upp Igen's masthead, scope down, her one open eye streaming, staring across at the old navigator on the other ship.
The Mouth, close now: the wall of mist, from horizon to horizon, grey-white and solid-looking as a cliff, the sea running into it and not coming out. No opening. Nothing.
ear to the planks, a beat late.
at the Upp Igen's wheel, calling across the narrowing water, calm, precise.
Both ships slowing, coming about under the black rock of Fyren, the lighthouse towering over them, the Beam sweeping overhead and away round the sea. Under the tower, a jetty, and on it, tiny from here, a giant of an old man in a yellow oilskin, one hand shading his eyes against a light nobody else can see.
on the bow, ears straight up at the lantern room, where huge pale moths flutter round the light. He barks at them. They ignore him. He barks again.
The Beam swinging away from the Mouth, round the far side of the sea, its silver threads fading behind it. The Mouth's mist dark now. The sea round Fyren's rocks dark.
very still at the wheel, staring at the black rocks round the Mouth.
And all round the Mouth, on every black rock and reef in the dark, at once, lights flare up: dozens of them, warm and golden, beacons, lanterns, signal-fires, every one of them looking exactly like the way home.
on his jetty, lowering his shading hand, his narrowed eyes going hard.