David Drake - Balefires

The other classical influence was Juvenal's 14th satire. In it he rails against the mad lust for wealth that causes ships' captains to load their vessels to the gunwales, risking death for a fraction more profit.

Juvenal is a brilliant and evocative writer. Critics always talk about his bitterness and invective, but I find far more interesting his remarkable ability to draw character with a line or two. I hope I've been able to learn something from his craftsmanship in general, but the scene just mentioned certainly shaped the present story.

I didn't specifically reference Alexander in "Lord of the Depths," and I deliberately didn't learn any more about Nearchos' voyage than what I'd found in Pliny's passing mention in a discussion of squids. I didn't want to sully my fiction with reality. (If this seems very silly to you, it seems even sillier to me now. I can't imagine why I felt that way, but I know that I did.)

In fact Nearchos was in command of a fleet of thousands of ships which were intended to supply Alexander and the army on the march. They failed to do so because the Greeks didn't learn about the South Asian monsoon until some two centuries later. I could have turned the real event into a story; but it would've been very different.

I wrote "Lord of the Depths" during my first year in law school and sent it to Mr. Derleth. He requested that I cut a scene which he said didn't fit: the viewpoint characters are chased by a giant lizard which is killed by an arrow from the catapult on the deck of one of the vessels. (Mr. Derleth wasn't exactly wrong-the scene was unnecessary. I don't think it hurt the story, though. He liked to fiddle with things.) When I made that change, he bought the story for $50, the most he ever paid me.

This was my second sale. Those of you who've already read "Denkirch" will note that I made an entirely different set of mistakes in this one. I like to think of that as the story of my life: an unending quest to find new fashions in which to screw up.

There were five of the ships. I, deck watch on the leader, the kerkourosFlyer, turned from the invariance of sea and moonlit jungle to glance back along our wake. Behind us stretched our sistersForesight andCrane, dragged like us over a thousand leagues of plain and desert to reach their element at last in the Great River and thence to the sea. For all their mishandling, the light craft were far more seaworthy than the trieresService or theDominator, a great fiver wallowing far astern. Built on the River, the larger ships had suffered for lack of knowledgeable craftsmen and seasoned wood. Both had leaked from the start and theDominator had warped to the point that a dozen crewmen choked in the bilges to keep the level down.

We were running by night, for the heat of the days was too great to live, much less row, on the glancing oven of the water. At dawn we would beach our craft, cook what had been caught during the night or foraged on the shore, and pray to find fresh water-all but a handful of our casks had been of green wood also. Then we would seek shade and rest, cursing all the while the madness of our leader to order the voyage, and our own to obey him.

The breeze was gentle and we scudded before it, easily distancing the heavier vessels though their sides crawled with oars. Their captains had formed the crews into shifts to work some of the oars at all times in a vain effort to keep abreast of their nimbler kinsmen, but only in rough seas where weight told and we needs must reduce sail did they succeed. The larger ships had been a mistake. Whereas we had crews of only eighteen and the beaks stripped off for ease on the long portage, the decked ships had been sent off in full fighting trim. TheDominator bore three hundred men, artillery fore and aft, and a bronze ram of ten talents, cast from our leader's spoils and fit only to warp the seams worse on such a voyage as ours.

Far back from the silvery darkness came the triple soughing of theDominator 's command horn: Close up! It meant, as always, reef sails and await the sluggards. I sighed in vexation, for we were many months from home as was and with the penteres leaking like the pails of the Belides the situation could only get worse. A flash from starboard and shore recalled my attention as I leaned over to roust Hipporion, our bosun; the moon was glinting from something smooth in the jungle, metal or polished marble.

"Lay your dream-wench aside, Hylas," I said, for with such a nickname we mocked the grizzled old bosun. "There's something to be seen."

He only grunted as he awoke, but his eye followed my gesture right enough.

"I suppose we're to bugger ourselves while theFornicator closes up again?" he growled, and at my nod roared, "Off and on, ladies, it's time to pretend we're sailors again. Begging your pardon, sir."

This last to Antiopas, a brave man and our captain, but a better horseman than sailor. He snapped awake, pawing for the long cavalry sword now stowed below as too awkward even for dignity. "What's the matter, Hylas?" he complained. "What couldn't a detail handle that we all must be up for?"

"Xenias has found something of interest, sir," the bosun answered and pointed toward the shore. More was visible now, stonework and what seemed the remains of a pier jutting from the jungle.

"Would it be a difficult landfall?" Antiopas questioned.

"With a pier for hope and a leadsman for certainty, I don't see any problem," the bosun decided, and I took the lead while he shouted orders to the rest of the crew. TheForesight, following or perhaps anticipating our action, trailed us in while theCrane 's less adventurous captain held position offshore.

I swore as I retrieved the third cast and we stood but a bow-shot from the shore.

"What bottom?" Hylas queried.

"None at all," I answered, well aware of the fool I sounded. The bosun, surprised, took the line without comment and cast it himself. The twenty fathoms shot through his hands butter smooth."Horns of Tanit, thereis no bottom!" he snarled. "Take it gentle," he warned the four men on sweeps. "We've a strange coast here and I've no desire to learn of further oddities the hard way."

I continued to sound as we crawled toward the shore. Finally, within a ship's length of the pier, I found bottom at sixty feet. There was no rise to speak of after that, even when the crumbling stone was alongside.

The climate had long since devoured the bollards, but an ornamental stone bench at the end of the pier and parallel to the shore was still sturdy enough to hold us by a couple turns of hawser. The pier was almost the only bare stone visible. The buildings, not bathed in salt, were completely overgrown save where a massive pediment had been pried loose by questing tendrils recently enough to leave the substructure bare. Without that there would have been little to catch my eye, for the pier was low among the waves.

"I'm going to take out a party," the captain remarked to Hylas. "You'd better be ready to get us out of here fast if we must."

Antiopas took five others with him, carrying javelins and staying within sight of the ship for the most part. TheForesight docked across from us but her captain kept all on board to wait for Antiopas to report. The arms chests had been opened and that, more than the ruins themselves, made us uneasy. Just as theDominator signaled again one of the men on shore picked something from the ground and called to his mates. The six of them gathered but distance and the uncertain light hid the object they were discussing. Then they began to jog back in evident excitement. "Sir," called Hylas as the captain approached, "the flagship is signaling."

"Call 'em in!"Antiopas shouted back."We're not leaving here till we've done a mite more searching."

He raised his hands and the heavy torque he carried shone softly in the moonlight. Colors were washed out, but the perfect lack of corrosion left no doubt of what the ornament was made. If a single piece of jewelry contained several pounds of gold, a further search was indeed worthwhile.