David Farland - Beyond the Gate

So with trepidation they left the docks as several crewmen rowed them to the ship in the fog. The Bock and Rougaire stood on the docks and waved goodbye, seeming to recede into the mist.

Once aboard the ship, the purser escorted them to their berths in three of the six small cabins near the captain’s quarters, then excused himself to handle other business.

A brief inspection showed that the ship was all they had been promised-comfortable, immaculate. The ship was already heavily laden with goods, so Orick and Maggie went up to the weather deck in the fog and watched one last time for sign of the Inhuman. Dozens of sailors came aboard in small boats, many of them obviously drunk.

“Watch for a man with bright yellow skin,” Maggie breathed into Orick’s ear, and Orick sat, listening to the creaking timbers of the ship, the water slapping against the hull. Certainly, most of the crew was made up of an eccentric lot. Dozens of small, bald men with red skin came aboard wearing little more than breechcloths and knife belts. They were filled with nervous energy and were soon everywhere, manning the lines, checking the ties. A dozen grim-faced giants in leather tunics, all armed with oversized bastard swords, seemed relegated to the more strenuous tasks of hoisting sails.

Other crewmen were more eccentric-tall men with tremendously large pale yellow eyes. Black men with horny growths sticking up under their long white hair. Two men with black hooded cloaks came in the last boat, so tightly bundled that they looked as if they wanted their faces hidden, and Orick strained to see the color of their skin. When they climbed up the ladder to the main deck, they moved with incredible swiftness. He glimpsed bare arms the color of slate. One had tattooed his right hand red.

The men passed Orick and Maggie on their way below deck, and Orick caught a glint of their eyes-a deep purple. The second of the pair bore a tattoo of a white spider between his eyes.

And though neither man had the markings that Orick sought, he found that the hair on his neck raised just a bit, and he fought the urge to turn and see if the men were staring at him. When at last he did turn, they had gone off into the fog, yet he wondered what those men might be able to see with such eyes.

When the last sailors boarded the ship, Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven,” she whispered. “Not a yellow man nor one of those bat people among the lot.”

The crew weighed anchors and hoisted a single sail, and the ship slid out of port slowly, still under cover of the thick fog.

And Orick soon forgot the chill he’d felt at the sight of the dark-cloaked men. Now that they were away, he found that his heart was light. He heard children laughing out over the water, and spotted some tots-little girls and boys swimming among the many jellyfish alongside the ship. He was amazed at the children’s speed, till he noticed that they wore no clothes, and they had tails like fishes.

“Hello!” Orick called to them, and the children laughed and waved at him and Maggie, shouting, “Hello, funny man! Hello, funny lady!” Then one of them threw a jellyfish and they all dove deep, as if they were afraid that he and Maggie would hurl rocks at them.

“Oh, do you think they’ll come back?” Maggie cried in delight, and they watched the white-tipped waves for a time, but saw no more of the water children.

Maggie and Orick ambled over the decks for the next half hour till they reached the open sea, where the air swirled and the oppressive fog was left behind.

Orick’s spirits soared as they came out under blue skies. The giants began hoisting all sails, and when they filled with air, the ship suddenly surged over the water.

Orick glanced up to the white sails, full of wind, his heart thrilling, just as three giant bat shapes swooped out of the fog to land in the rigging.

He cringed and Maggie cried out, and they moved a bit to see where the creatures went. All three of them scurried to a roofed crow’s nest, where they began to cover their eyes with their wings, hiding from the sun.

One of them shouted, “All clear! Night watch out!” then blew a seaman’s whistle.

Orick had heard that voice dozens of times in the fog, but never realized that it came from one of the loathsome batlike scouts.

“Hah, they’re just part of the crew,” Maggie laughed in mock relief. “Who better to sit watch in the crow’s nest?”

“A crow would be better,” Orick growled, recalling how the scouts had blown their little seaman’s whistles in town. “I don’t like the looks of them!”

“You can’t damn them for their looks,” Maggie said, studying the creatures as they huddled in their dark nest.

Her red hair was flying in the wind, and she brushed it out of her face. “Just because they’re scouts, it doesn’t mean they’re Inhuman.”

“But it does mean that they’re ugly, and I’d just as soon not have their kind near me!” Orick grumbled. “I’ve seen no good from them.”

Maggie whispered, “Speak softer. There’s no telling how well they hear.” She bent closer, and Orick listened tight. “Orick, those things may not be Inhuman, but it’s just as possible that they are. We’re on a ship full of people from Babel, and it’s likely that at least one of them, and probably more, are Inhuman.”

Orick grumbled, turned away, and padded over the deck, his claws scratching the well-scrubbed planks. Maggie’s voice had sounded calm enough when she talked of the creatures, but Orick noticed how quick Maggie was to follow at his heels.

That evening, Orick and the others dined at the captain’s table. The dinner was a fine feast, with a unique wine that both stimulated the mind and elevated the mood, and along with it they had plates of candied meats, five types of melon, sweet rolls, and breads with cheese baked in them. Orick was delighted, for he seldom found a table larger than his appetite.

In the captain’s cabin, the brass lamps kept the room well lit, and the captain had only two other guests at the table-a fat merchant and a shy albino girl.

Captain Aherly sat at the far end of the table from Orick, with a steward boy in a gray smock at one shoulder and his nervous bodyguard at the other.

They made polite conversation for a while at dinner, and Orick was plainly curious about the other guests at the table, so he was almost relieved when the captain said to Gallen, “I’ve never heard someone who spoke quite the way you and your friends do.”

“They’re from the village of Soorary, in the north,” Ceravanne put in, covering for them.

“Ah, a far country,” the captain said, plainly trying to disguise the fact that he wasn’t satisfied. “So, do you travel to Babel on business, or pleasure?”

“Adventure,” Gallen said. “My friends and I are out to see the world, and I understand that a lot of it is south of here.”

“Hah.” The captain laughed. “Well, if you’re going south, there are some sights that will have your eyes popping out.”

“What of our other guests?” Gallen asked. “Why are you aboard?” The albino girl, a shy girl who had not spoken all evening, looked to the merchant as if asking him to speak, but when he remained silent for too long, she leaned forward and said softly, “I went to the City of Life, for Downing.”

Ceravanne supplied the proper response. “You seek resurrection? I hope you were judged worthy!”

The girl looked away demurely. “I was not. They read my memories, but felt that my contribution to society does not merit-” She choked off the words.

Orick felt a small shock go around the table, and wondered what it would be like to be judged unworthy of future life. It would be as bad as getting a death sentence, he decided.