Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

Men boiled out of the deck hatches, inhuman shapes in the dancing light of storm-lanterns. Lightning scorched the darkness above them. Orders were issued, from Locke and Jean and Jabril, with no heed paid to whose was the higher authority. The minutes became hours, and the hours felt like days. They fought on together in an eternity of grey chaos, cold and exhausted and terrified, against the screaming winds above and the hammering waters below.

"Three feet of water in the well and holding, Captain." Aspel delivered his report with a makeshift bandage wrapped around his head, the sleeve of someone's jacket roughly slashed from its parent garment.

"Very good," said Locke, holding himself up at the mainmast much as Caldris had days before. Every joint and muscle in Locke's body announced their discomfort; he felt like a rag doll full of broken glass, and he was soaked into the bargain. But in that he was no different from any of the survivors aboard the Red Messenger. As Chains had once said, feeling like you wanted desperately to die was fine evidence that you had yet to do so.

The summer's-end storm was a receding line of darkness on the north-western horizon; it had spat them out a few hours earlier. Here, the seas were running at five or six feet and the skies were still ashen grey, but this was a paradise following the tempest. Enough funereal light filtered down from above for Locke to guess that it was day, after some fashion.

He surveyed the shambles of the deck: lifelines and debris from the rigging were tangled everywhere. Scraps of canvas fluttered in the wind, and sailors were tripping over fallen block and tackle, cursing as they went. They were a crew of ghosts, haggard and clumsy with fatigue. Jean laboured at the forecastle to conjure their first warm meal in living memory.

"Damnation," Locke muttered. Their escape had not been without price: three swept clean overboard, four seriously injured, two dead including Caldris. Mirlon, the cook, had been the man at the wheel when the main topgallant mast had crashed down upon him like a divine spear and shattered his skull.

"No, Captain," said Jabril from behind him. "Not if we can do right by them."

"What? Locke whirled, confused… then suddenly he remembered. "Oh, yes, of course."

"The fallen, Captain," said Jabril, enunciating as though to a child. "The fallen haunt our decks and cannot rest until we send them off proper." "Aye," said Locke. "Let's do that."

Caldris and Mirlon lay by the larboard entry port, wrapped in canvas. Pale packages bound with tarred rope, awaiting their final sendoff. Locke and Jabril knelt beside them. "Say the words, Ravelle," muttered Jabril. "You can do that much for them. Send their souls on down to Father Stormbringer and give them rest."

Locke stared at the two wrapped corpses and felt a new pain in his heart. Nearly overcome with fatigue and shame, he put his head in his hands and thought quickly.

By tradition, ships" captains could be proclaimed lay priests of Iono, with a minimum of study at any proper temple to the Lord of the Grasping Waters. At sea, they could then lead prayers, perform marriages and even give death-blessings. While Locke knew some interior ritual of Iono's Temple, he wasn't consecrated in Iono's service. He was a priest of the Crooked Warden, and here at sea, a thousand miles out into Iono's domain, aboard a ship that was already damned for spurning his mandates… there was no way in heavens or hells Locke could presume to give these men Iono's rest. For the sake of their souls, he'd have to invoke the only power he had any pull with.

"Crooked Warden, Unnamed Thirteenth, your servant calls. Place your eyes upon the passing of this man, Caldris bal Comar, Iono's servant, sworn to steal goods beneath the red flag, therefore sharing a corner of your kingdom—"

"What are you doingV Jabril hissed, seizing Locke by the arm. Locke shoved him backward.

"The only thing I can do," said Locke. "The only honest blessing I can give these men, understand? Don't fucking interfere again." He reached back down to touch Caldris's wrapped body. "We deliver this man, body and spirit, to the realm of your brother Iono, mighty lord of the sea." Locke figured a little flattery never went amiss in these matters. "Lend him aid. Carry his soul to She who weighs us all. This we pray with hopeful hearts."

Locke gestured for Jabril's help. The muscular man remained deadly silent as they lifted Caldris's body together and heaved it out through the entry port. Even before he heard the splash, Locke reached back down to the other canvas bundle.

"Crooked Warden, Thiefwatcher, your servant calls. Place your eyes upon the passing of this man, Mirlon, Iono's servant, sworn to steal goods beneath a red flag, therefore sharing a corner of your kingdom…"

The mutiny came the next morning, while Locke slept senseless in his hammock, still wearing the wet clothes that had seen him through the storm.

He was awakened by the sound of someone slamming his door and shooting home the bolt. Bleary-eyed and gasping in confusion, he all but fell out of his hammock and had to use his sea-chest to push himself unsteadily to his feet.

"Arm yourself," said Jean, backing away from the door with both of his hatchets in hand. "We've got a problem."

That brought Locke to full wakefulness sharply enough. He buckled on his sword-belt in haste, noting with satisfaction that the heavy shutters over his stern windows were still drawn. Light peeked in around the edges; was it day already? Gods, he'd slept the whole night away in one dreamless blink. "There's, ah, some of them that aren't happy with me, aren't there?" "None of them are happy with us."

"I think they're surely angrier with me than they are with you. I think you could still make it as one of them; it's my blood they'll be after, and you can claim to be as much my dupe as they were. Take me out to them. You might still pull this scheme off and get the antidote from Stragos."

"Are you mad?" Jean glared back at Locke, but didn't step away from the door.

"You're a strange fellow, brother." Locke contemplated his Verrari sea-officer's sabre uneasily; in his hands it would be no less a showpiece than it was now, in its scabbard. "First you want to punish yourself for something that's not your fault, and now you won't let me slip you out of a mistake that's entirely mine."

"Who the hell are you to lecture me, Locke? First you insist that I stay despite the real danger I pose to you, and now you beg me to betray you for gain? Fuck you. You're ten pints of crazy in a one-pint glass."

"That describes us both, Jean." Locke smiled despite himself; there was something refreshing in being returned to danger of his own making after the indifferent malice of the storm. "Though you're more of a carafe than a pint glass. I knew you wouldn't buy it." "Too gods-damned right."

"I will say that I would" ve liked to have seen Stragos's face when we did whatever we were going to do to him," said Locke. "And I would" ve liked to know what it was when the clever moment came."

"Well," said Jean, "as long as we're wishing, I would have liked a million solari and a parrot that speaks Throne Therin. But they're not coming, take my meaning?"

"Maybe the fact that this scuppers Stragos's precious little plan is fuck-you enough."

"Now, Locke." Jean sighed, and his voice softened. "Maybe they'll want to talk first. And if they want to talk to you, with your wits about you, we might still have a chance."

"Doubtless you're the only man aboard this ship who'd still express confidence in anything I do." Locke sighed. "RAVELLE!" The shout came from the companionway. "You didn't kill any of them yet, did you, Jean?" "Not yet, no."