Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

San did not look stern and forbidding. He was smiling. He looked like a fyrd captain; he looked like one of us. The caption read: San, from Haclyth village, proclaimed Emperor in 415 on the dissolution of the Pentadrica.

I thought, this is what San looked like when he was the only immortal man; counselor turned warrior when, in another world, Insect eggs hatched, imagos amassed, and the swarm broke through into peaceful Awia. One would gain great wisdom by living through such times, witnessing incredible events-Litanee raiders sucked into the space Alyss left, riding at each other through standing crops and the smoke of burning thatch. Maybe the nomadic Plainslanders settled down somewhat once they’d gained Pentadrican farmland. So that, some sixteen centuries later, the Plainslands sprawls with twice the range, merchant families rule Morenzia and, in the city of San’s birth, waterwheels spin in industry.

Some of Sillago’s story fitted with what I already knew. I was keen to show Lightning my translation, because he had told me that his manor was created from land that was originally Pentadrican, where they prospered from the Donaise hills vineyards. In 549 wealth gained from the Gilt River gold rush brought his family to the throne. The Murrelet dynasty ended, and Esmerillion Micawater made her town the capital of Awia.

San has kept his position as Emperor for sixteen centuries, I thought. The current Circle is only his most recent system. If he had not founded the Circle, he might not still be Emperor. He must have come very close to being deposed in 619 when the First Circle was defeated. Our immortality seemed dangerously transient and unstable compared to San’s long life. If he found a better system and no longer needed us, I wondered what would happen.

Istopped transcribing and simply read until my eyes ached. Candlelight shadowed the texture of the page. Sillago’s prose tested my comprehension of old Morenzian but I read on, absorbed. In the Amarot library this was just a flawed textbook, but to the Fourlands it was a priceless artifact.

As I came down from my high, for the first time I felt the waves’ motion as lulling rather than threatening. Outside, the whistle blew for the three A.M. watch. With a warm feeling of achievement I nodded asleep, curled protectively over the book, the pages kept open with one loving hand.

Iwoke with a quick intake of breath. I lay listening, afraid to look around, feeling that something was standing over me. I was used to the wide sky and the enduring size of the Castle-the Melowne was a claustrophobic floating wooden box. I forced myself to ease the cabin door open and look out at the empty night. I thought: shit, someone’s stolen half the moon. But it was only clouds, I think. I must be more careful what I drink. Thin purple cirrus whipped past under the stars. There was no one about. Just a bad dream, I told myself. Go out and have a breath of fresh air.

I climbed down to the gallery and looked at the water. The open ocean was a wasteland. From edge to edge of its black expanse there was no visible life. But its endless sound and movement made the ocean itself seem like an animal. The whole febrile sea was horribly alive in a way that the static mountains could never be. A cold feeling lapped over me again. Something was wrong. What was that? Running alongside Melowne, about ten meters out from the hull, was a hollow in the inky water, silvery with the reflection of Melowne’s lamps. Is the hollow real? It must be, a trick of the light wouldn’t persist for so long. I thought I knew all the sea phenomena by now. I shrank back; was something sentient there? I glanced up to the lookout in the crow’s nest but he stared straight out ahead. Either he hadn’t noticed, or he thought nothing wrong. The wind was directly behind us. The indentation in the water was pointed at the front and rounded inside. I could see the far side of the wall of water inside, about two meters deep. The waves broke around it but didn’t fall into the hole. It was as if something pressed down on the brine, like it was being displaced by the hull of a nonexistent ship.

The indentation overtook us and veered away, gradually dissipating as it went. The hollow filled, leaving the surface smooth. I stared at the sea for a few minutes. Had I imagined it? Then a fin broke surface. I struggled with the perspective as the black triangle rose. Its wet tip came up to Melowne ’s gallery, then passed it to the height of the deck. I could have touched it. It was fully five meters high. At its base, the rough back of a shark emerged, a thinner, more elongated shape than the ship. Way behind our stern, the tips of its tail flukes projected like a second dorsal fin, moving back and forth in the water. I froze. The shark was the same length as Melowne. It was fifty meters long. There were monsters out there. A flick of its tail would turn us to floating splinters.

The shark swam alongside. I suddenly wondered why the lookout hadn’t seen it. I leaned over the gallery. “Tarragon?” I called. “Tarragon? Tarragon!” The dorsal fin rolled away from the ship, bringing the pectoral fin to the surface. The shark’s silver fish eye, as big as a buckler, stared straight up at me for a second. Water washed through open gill slits like loose meter-long wounds. It rolled back. Water rose up around the wave-cutting dorsal fin as its body sank to the level of our keel.

“Tarragon…?” The shark gave a slow wriggle, left-right along its length. Its immense power sped the fin past me, then its long arched back, the vertical tail flukes. It was gone, deep under the ship.

I became aware of panic on the main deck above. Pale, frightened faces appeared at the rails. Shouts in three languages stopped abruptly when Fulmer’s voice bellowed something.

Tarragon said she would watch over us. Was it her down there? I thought she was a cute fish; I expected her to be girl-sized. I didn’t know she was a hundred-ton leviathan.

Fulmer slid down the ladder and confronted me with an intent look. “Are you awake, Jant? There’s nothing there.”

“Whatever it was,” I whispered, “she’s gone.”

For the sake of my reality, I was relieved I couldn’t see where Tarragon had gone, or what she could see underwater with her cold, filmed eyes.

WRENN’S DIARY

June 1, 2020

Today Mist and Fulmer had a blazing row and one of the sailors was put to death. He had been caught stealing a gold boot-scraper from a chest in the Melowne’s forecastle. He was one of the sailors who didn’t go ashore because we left before it was his turn. The men who missed their chance to see Capharnaum are very restless. Fulmer insisted discipline had to be kept, and for stealing cargo while under way the sentence is death. All seagoing vessels operate under Morenzian law. It is harsher than Awian justice-I think because Awia is in more danger of being wiped out by the Insects, we know better than to harm our own people. But Fulmer says that ruthlessness is needed at sea to stop mutinies happening.

This ship in Fulmer’s charge is worth a dynasty’s fortune. It’s so crammed that I have to sleep sitting upright between sacks of all-spice. Fulmer said that if the men before the mast can thieve as they wish there’ll be nothing left by the time he reaches Tanager.

Mist Ata yelled, “I forbid you! After all the losses to the Insect I’m not losing another crewman. Just put him in the hold and lock the hatch. Take your ‘I must make an example’ and stuff it!”

Fulmer yelled, “I’m sick of interfering Eszai! You’re no better than anyone else just because you can handle a tiller or sword!”

I learned that at sea a captain is like a governor; on a matter of law Eszai can only advise him, not overrule. Fulmer was adamant and he had the law on his side.