Chapter 276
Black sea. And across the whole horizon, from the water to the top of the sky, a wall of storm: black cloud boiling, grey-white lightning crawling through it, rain hanging like curtains. And in the storm, sails: dozens of them, sails made of thunderhead, and at their wheels the dim shapes of captains.
alone on the black water: Old Pike, a small tarred skiff, forty years old, patched and weathered, her name worn half off her bow. An old man in her with a pipe, a fishing line in the water, and a long driftwood rod across his knees, wound with cord tied in seven knots.
looking up at the two ships coming out of the dark. Huge, stooped, barrel-chested, a sea-blue cloak worn grey at every edge, a salt-bleached beard to his chest with one braid and a bone fish-hook bead in it. Hands bigger than his face. Pale grey-blue eyes, and the irises moving like water.
NJORD · K-III TESTED · Scalelist #51,402
at the Marka's bow, opening his mouth.
A girl, fourteen, in an oilskin three sizes too big, one long fair plait, freckles, sharp eyes on the crews, her hands moving fast in sign. Square-bracket balloons for her signing.
at the rail, slowly lifting his hands and signing back, clumsily, a few signs he learned from Vider at the rim of the Silence.
Njord standing up in the skiff, slow and economical, the rod in both hands, facing the wall of storm. His cloak blowing the wrong way, against the wind, toward the weather.
going flat and silver-calm, like a lake before a storm. Faint over the panel, like a watermark, the sea as it will be in a minute, an hour, a day: swells that haven't risen yet, drawn in pale lines.
Njord's rod dipping into the sea in front of Old Pike, one slow stir. And the swells that haven't risen yet, the pale watermark lines, untwisting: unravelling one by one before they can stand up. Ahead of the skiff, a stripe of sea going flat.
at the Marka's wheel, staring.
The wall of storm, split down the middle. On either side, rising higher than mountains, storms: black, boiling, lightning in their bellies, thunderhead sails straining, drowned captains at cloud-wheels glaring down. And between them, running straight through the wall to the far side, a road of glass-flat water, not a ripple on it, reflecting the black sky like a mirror.
Down the road, small, in single file: a tarred skiff, a battered carrack sheathed in bark-scraps, and a bark-ship with a lit wick in her rigging, gliding through the storm on water that has forgotten how to move.
leaning out of the wall, a drowned face in the cloud, sodden coat, empty eyes, reaching a hand of rain toward the Marka, and the rain stopping at the edge of the flat road as if at a glass wall.
STORM CAPTAIN · THE DEAD · drowned
at the rail, looking up into the storms. His hand on his own forearm, where green lightning lives. The lightning crawling under his skin, restless, as if it knows these clouds.
Through the wall, out the far side, into light. A real sky, with a real sunrise in it, the first since the Mouth. Below it, a vast lake, fresh water lying over salt, wide as a sea, and on its eastern shore a little grey village of tarred sheds and net-racks and a long wooden dock.
on the Marka's deck, a beat late, turning her face up into the sunrise with her eyes closed.
in Old Pike, sitting down heavily, the silver going out of his eyes. Tapping his ear. Shaking his head. Sill signing to him fast.
hand-painted on driftwood: TIDEKANT · HEARTBEAT'S GREAT LAKE. And under it, smaller, in another hand: Not on any map. Keep it that way.
Both ships moored at Tidekant. Fisher-folk coming down to look: weathered men and women, children, old people, all in oilskins, all quiet, all glancing at Njord before they decide anything. Salt-cod drying on every rail. Gulls.
climbing up onto the dock, stopping in front of Kompis, sniffing at him like an old dog, looking at his ears.
uncorked on a barrel-top on the dock, and Njord pouring a thick, cloudy, faintly yellow spirit into tin cups.
Vigolas drinking it and choking, eyes streaming, pounding his own chest.
Kompis drinking it and not choking. Everyone staring at him. "…It's quite nice?"
Krydog drinking it, falling over backward off the barrel, and getting up. "…Again."
Roffe sniffing it, eyes shining: "I can cook with this."
trotting to the end of the dock, looking down at Old Pike, and jumping in. Swimming out to the skiff. Njord's huge hand reaching down to pull him aboard, dripping, and feeding him a strip of salt-cod.
leaning at an impossible angle against a net-rack, watching, his battered tin in his hand. He flicks the lid open: inside it, scratched with a pin, a little ledger of nine lines. Four struck through, paid (ROPE → A KNOT SLIPS, WIND → A HAT BLOWS OFF, NET-KNOT → A BOOTLACE, FALL → A SPILLED DRINK). One still open: MOUTH, 1 NOTCH. DUE: ?
turning from the dog, and looking at Vigolas. A long, long look. At his face. At the green lightning flickering at his wrists. At the bell on the Marka's bow.
noticing, grinning, uneasy.
Everyone asleep: the crews on deck, the village in its sheds. Njord alone at the end of the dock with his sealskin boots in the lake, the rod across his knees. Mingus asleep against his hip, smelling of cod.
head tilted toward the horizon, toward the storm-wall far out across the lake. Listening. Ahead.
the irises moving like water, faster and faster.
drawn twice: tonight's sky, calm, full of stars, and over it, faint as a watermark, the sky three days from now. Black. Storm after storm after storm, sails of thunderhead, a whole fleet pouring in over the lake. And in the middle of them, bigger than all the rest, one storm with a flagship's sails and a wheel at its heart.
on the tide-rod. On the seven knots. Shaking.
an old man with his boots in the water and a dog asleep against him, looking at a storm that hasn't happened yet.