Майкл Салливан - Deep Magic. Fourth Collection

Jeremy Essex is the author of the sci-fi/horror novella ‘The Sound Of Time’, as well as multiple short stories which have appeared in Kzine, Tales From The Canyons Of The Damned, Acidic Fiction and 9 Tales Told In The Dark . He lives in Suffolk in the U.K. where he spends a lot of time in Indian restaurants.

Website:www.jeremyessex.co.uk

Twitter:@byatis1

7,200 Words

THROUGH THE COLD and glistening blue, the Spanish galleon El Pez Volador groaned with her heavy load of bullion under a bright Caribbean sun. Captain Don Capricho Delgado y Cervantes stood amidships, fists to hips, his coppery, shoulder-length hair whipping about his head like pennants in the wind. He was what Spaniards dubbed a rojo , his red hair and fairer skin considered regal, a unique contrast to the dark olive of his men. He stared over the gunwale and scowled at the horizon. His ship maestre , Salvador, stood to his right, and a grizzled sailor named Sanchez crouched beside him, dipping a ladle into the scuttlebutt.

“There it is again.” Capricho pointed at a surreal column that plumed in the distance. It transformed from peaceful blue into wicked flickers of scarlet. He shielded his eyes with a hand, squinted. “Have you ever witnessed its like?”

The burly Salvador hissed when he spotted it. “No. Never.”

The column continued shimmering on the horizon in bizarre shades of arterial red.

“Lightning perhaps?”

“No lightning does such things.”

“Waterspout?”

“A twister glowing with blood light?”

Capricho lowered his gaze, turned to the old sailor. “You, Sanchez? You have traveled this sea longer than any of us.”

Sanchez brought the dented dipper to his lips and drained it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sighed, and squinted a rheumy eye at Capricho with suspicion. “Thought you didn’t want me tellin’ my stories.”

Capricho frowned. “I said hold your tongue because the men are twitchy from yesterday’s squall. They are a superstitious lot.”

“By all the saints, they should be after seeing that beast of a storm slice our flotilla apart.” Sanchez waved the dipper. “You want to hear about my watch last night?”

Salvador grunted a quick “No” but Capricho held up a hand. “Does it have bearing on this phenomenon?”

“Course it does!”

“Make it brief.”

Sanchez hitched his tattered britches up his skinny hips and tightened the rope around the waist. “‘Twas on the forecastle, third watch, when the ocean goes flat as a bedsheet. I’m telling you, Captain, the way that water reflected the stars, we could have been sailing on a mirror . . .”

A distant memory washed over Capricho, of a river that had looked like that, sweet memories that brought pain. Capricho shoved them away and listened.

“So you can imagine my surprise when, dead center in the moon's reflection, this sirena bobs up, hair floating behind her like kelp in a current. Well, she turned her lustful gaze upon me and my—”

“Stop.” Capricho pointed to the flickering column. “What does this have to do with that ?”

“Just getting to it, Captain. This sirena , she raised her voice in a dirge that could have curdled blood.” He thumped his chest. “But I stood fast, I did, though lesser men would have run. She sang in a strange tongue, but I understood it like it was my mother's own voice. She sang that the Wind Howlers had marked us. Said they were hunting us.”

“Wind Howlers?”

“ Sí. Local spirits, methinks.”

Salvador chuffed. “Bah. The only spirits here are the ones you get from a jug.”

Sanchez jabbed him with the dipper. “Ten cuidado! Do not taunt the gods. This New World is full of old life. Conquistadors are brutal to the natives. You think the locals don’t have gods just like we do? We robbed their temples! You think there won’t be payback?”

Salvador groaned, turned to Capricho. “I’m going. We need to get a man up the main to watch for lost ships.”

“Might as well stop looking for them,” Sanchez said.

Salvador’s jaw twitched. “And why is that?”

“The sirena’s dirge.” Sanchez crossed himself. “Said the Howlers sunk every ship.”

Salvador clenched his fists. “And the waterspout?”

“Well, those Howlers?” He stabbed the ladle to the horizon. “That’s their marker. They’ve tagged us. They're coming back to finish the job.”

Salvador’s face flushed dark red. Capricho slapped Salvador lightheartedly on the back. “Easy, cousin. What else would you expect from Sanchez? Come. Whatever it is, it’s not bothering us.”

At that moment, the distant pillar shifted from crimson to sapphire, then sunk back into the sea. Capricho took it as a good omen. They walked alongside the gunwale, both silent.

Sanchez got the last word. “ La sirena . . . she also sang about you, Captain.”

Capricho shuddered, the scent of the tarred deck sharp in his nostrils. He touched the spot where a silver cross hung under his shirt.

He did not look back.

Within the captain’s cabin, the approach of evening brought welcome relief from the day’s sweltering heat. Mullioned windowpanes ran the length of the stern, propped at an angle to partake of cool breezes. Shafts of setting sunlight passed across the narrow gallery outside and glittered through the panes, gilding the cabin’s mahogany bulkheads and richly set table in warm amber hues.

Beeswax candles set in the table's silver candlesticks flickered in the breeze—extravagant, but the rancid scent from smoky tallow candles spoiled good meals in Capricho's opinion. Besides, this was a special dinner. There would be no dining with the other officers tonight—Capricho needed to consult with Salvador alone, and there was nothing better to soften the hard man's disposition than good fellowship under the glow of a warm meal. And wine. Lots of wine.

Capricho took a careful sip of the red from Rioja, his precious private stock. He savored the black cherry flavors that swirled over his palate before swallowing. “I am not saying I believe Sanchez's wild story, but I tell you, Salvador, that storm is stalking us.”

Salvador hoisted a chalice to his lips, drained half the bowl without a thought. “And I say again, this talk is loco. We should turn back! It is dangerous to travel alone, crazy storm or not.”

“No, Salvador.” Capricho jabbed his fork in accent to his words. “She—is—stalking—us! This gale hunts us like a predator. She is behind us. I feel it in my bones.”

Salvador grunted, stabbed his fork into a steaming piece of turtle meat drenched in olive oil.

“We sail on to Havana,” Capricho said.

Salvador said nothing, wolfed away at his meal.

“You still aren’t in agreement?”

Salvador grabbed the pitcher, refilled his chalice. “You still aren't listening?"

Capricho scowled, waved a hand to continue.

Salvador gulped more wine. "Dangerous, sailing alone to Havana.”

“We have no choice.”

“We could turn back to Cartagena, join another flotilla.”

“But we’re halfway to Havana! The fleet gathers there.”

“Better wind going south.”

It would be safer turning back. It just irked Capricho to tuck tail and come about. Batten down and hold fast, that was his motto, and he drilled it into his men. Stubborn pride, some called it. Capricho called it tenacity, but he knew both terms were close cousins. Like the line in points of sail between “close-hauled” and “in irons.” With the difference of a few degrees, any ship could slip from swift forward momentum of close-hauled trim into the dead stall of being shackled in irons.