Half Discovered Wings (23 page)

…
Timothy Yarde, liste
…
o wh
…
have to
s
…

No doubt about it, that was his
name
someone was calling, and he
couldn’t understand how.

Shaking his head, as if trying to purge the memory, he held
on tighter and looked down at the lower keel. It was intact,
completely undamaged. There were plenty of clamplets though,
clinging stubbornly to the wood. He watched the tiny black
creatures for a second. They were harmless descendants of mussels,
or some form of crustacean that had evolved to be somehow primate
in appearance, tiny ‘sea-monkeys’ as people called them in Goya,
faceless and blubbery. They held onto the submerged bow with
mechanical tenacity as they absorbed the salts and minerals that
kept them sustained on their endless voyage. They were barely
alive, unable to speak in any form, let alone Eng—

Do as we ask and we’ll ask you no more
, sang a feminine voice in his ear.
A fortune awaits on the dark Goyan shore
…

The chief
suddenly felt groggy, despite the immense fear that still rolled
inside his stomach, but as his eyelids began to fall he suddenly
felt air on his face, just gently, and soft lips pressing against
his forehead.

~

The ghostly outlines of other sunken vessels could still be
seen in the water around them, silhouettes in the mist.

‘
If we’re not taking on water, aren’t we all right to sail?’
the magus asked the captain.

‘
Best to make sure,’ the man replied, a little calmer
now.

‘
How long should it take?’ Gabel asked.

‘
He should be up any minute now.’ His words had come out
composed, but his hands were grasping the side very tightly, and
his knuckles were pale as paper. He could see that the vessel
wasn’t sinking, but there was no point in continuing if there were
immediate repairs to be made. Any premature advance would only
worsen any damage.

Just then the
surface broke, and the bulky helmeted figure clambered slowly up
the bow of the boat. He stood dripping while the others gave him
room, then unfastened the seals on the neck and pulled the helmet
away with a hiss. A few droplets of water slid down the inside of
the condensed visor and dropped to the deck with the rest.

‘
Any damage?’ the captain asked.

‘
Nothing,’ said the chief, shaking his head. ‘Not a scratch.
Has anything turned up on the inside?’

The captain
turned to Caeles, who shook his head. ‘Nothing we’ve seen.’

‘
Could you check?’ Timothy asked. He waited patiently until
Caeles gave the eventual nod, and then said his thanks. Caeles and
Gabel went below deck, followed by the magus.

Timothy and
the captain were left alone. ‘Are you sure there was nothing? They
weren’t bubbles we hit just then.’

‘
There is absolutely nothing. I could only see the one side,
but if there’s no internal damage, then it can’t be too
bad.’

The captain
nodded in reply.

‘
Where’s Lanark?’ Timothy inquired.

‘
Getting her ready again. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be too
serious, if there were no leaks. I can’t wait to leave this place.’
Turning to look through the bridge windows, the captain didn’t see
the chief raise the heavy stainless steel helmet over his head.
‘And I figured we’d have to get moving again anyway, what with that
sick girl aboard.’

The captain turned at exactly the same time Timothy brought
the heavy helmet down onto his skull. With a dull thud the captain
slipped on the deck, desperately scrabbling for purchase on the wet
cabin wall but finding none. The helmet dropped again, and the
captain’s skull fractured audibly. He fell at an unusual angle, and
the water on the deck immediately began soaking up into his clothes
and hair. The helmet landed with a thud beside him.

‘
Lanark,’ the chief called, stepping over the body. ‘No damage,
to the ship at least. The captain’s giving control over to
me.’

Through the window Lanark looked around, hands on the wheel.
He could see his chief, cumbersome in the diver’s bell, but not the
captain.

Must be in the head
, he thought, and
waited patiently for his superior to take over. The door opened and
closed, and the sound of the quiet rain was blocked out
immediately. The chief dripped.

‘
So no damage at all then? There weren’t any leakages, so it
looks as if—’

Timothy smashed a gloved fist into the mate’s jaw, and
Lanark, just for a moment, saw stars burst before his
eyes.

Coming up the
stairs from the lower berth, Gabel hesitated in shock as he saw the
two men wrestling. Both were strong and healthy, but the chief had
the upper hand and took the opportunity to throttle the other
man.

Gabel saw
Lanark’ss eyes roll back in his skull and his strength
rapidly drain from his grasping arms. Then Gabel reached for the
pistol waiting across his chest, and lodged twin bullets between
the chief’s shoulder blades, spouting blood from some artery or
other, spraying the floor by the top of the steps. Timothy turned,
eyes wide, and unwittingly sprayed his recovering friend, who,
coughing violently from the attack, managed to knock the chief down
and pin him to the floor.

Timothy gagged
and seemed dizzy, his eyes blinking continuously, and though being
pushed against the floor was staunching some of the flow from the
wounds in his back, he had already lost too much of his life’s
blood to survive.

‘
They … promised…’ he managed, but his strength left him, and
he went slack.

*

Fourteen

CRUX LUAL

The rain over the Lual slowed to a stop, yet the air remained
loaded with moisture, which confounded Lanark’s attempt to mop up
blood. He, Gabel and Caeles had argued bitterly for a few minutes
before deciding to throw Timothy’s body overboard. There was no
room to keep him, and since all the food on the boat was dried,
there was no refrigeration to slow down the body’s decomposition.
Curiously, Lanark had saluted his captain’s attacker as he vanished
under the surface.

The captain
was still alive. Blood leaked from a huge split in his scalp, and
he was unconscious, but not yet dead. Gabel went immediately to
work bandaging his head with the only cloth available. It was dirty
and stank, and had probably been used for tarring the ropes, but
Gabel pointed out that blood loss would sooner kill the captain
than any infection.

The captain didn’t wake until two hours before dawn, and was
dreamy-eyed. Gabel had been on watch, keeping an eye on both him
and Rowan – ‘We are a sorry bunch, aren’t we?’ Caeles muttered –
and turned when the captain mumbled something about mermaids. Gabel
watched for a few seconds, until suddenly the captain spasmed in
the bed and let loose a terrific scream, heard by all on board. It
was obvious that he was in tremendous pain, and didn’t have the
capacity at the moment to understand
why
.

‘
Are there any drugs on board?’ Caeles asked Lanark.

The man closed
his eyes for a second, and then looked down the stairs where the
captain was. Caeles had to ask him twice.

‘
Are there any drugs, painkillers? Answer me.’

‘
There’s some thorazine and diazepam in one of the chests
downstairs. I’ll get it.’

Caeles nodded and followed the man. He watched as Lanark
unclasped the chest and pulled out diazepam in a round two-inch jar
with a foil cap.

‘
You have it in liquid form?’

Lanark nodded. ‘We have hypodermic needles…’

‘
Better give me the thorazine,’ Caeles said, listening to the
screams. The captain was clutching his skull.

How
can anything hurt that much?
he
thought.
There’s only so much that
screaming aloud can achieve.

He took the second jar
Lanark gave him and a hypodermic in a plastic wrapper.

‘
Take this one, it’s the right volume for that.’

Caeles knelt by the captain and fed the glass needle into the
jar. The cap gave a gentle
pop
as it was punctured.

‘
Find a vein while I do this,’ he asked of Gabel. A few seconds
later he pushed the needle under the captain’s skin and dropped the
plunger. The captain stopped screaming immediately.

‘
Shit.’

‘
Did you give him too much?’

‘
I dunno, I don’t know how this works…’

He tested the
pulse: thready, but that was to be expected. He put his cheek over
the captain’s mouth, just like he had done with Rowan, and the
microscopic sensors in his pores detected airflow.

‘
He’s okay, I think.’

‘
The
bandage has nearly come off,’ Gabel said quietly, and carefully
began fastening it again.

‘
You think all that screaming was something
physical?’

‘
You’re asking if his mind might have been somewhere
else?’

‘
Yeah, something like that. Like he was hallucinating or
something. You just don’t scream like that ‘cause you’re
hurting.’

Gabel
shrugged. ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ he said. ‘That’s something that
we will have to ask him, when he awakes. We cannot allow something
like this to happen to anybody else onboard.’

Lanark sidled over, and Caeles turned to face him. ‘Did the
chief say anything before he attacked you?’

‘
Only something about the captain giving him command of the
vessel. You think Timothy was crazy?’

‘
Well, he wasn’t right.’ Caeles looked down at the captain, the
blood already soaked through half the bandage. ‘Has Timothy acted
weird before?’

‘
Weird?’

‘
Strange; odd.’

‘
No, not normally. He sulks sometimes, and I heard him mumbling
in his sleep the other night.’

‘
What did he mumble?’

‘
I couldn’t make anything out. Something about falling stars, I
think. Maybe that’s it.’

‘
What are you thinking?’ Gabel asked Caeles.

‘
I’m not sure,’ he replied slowly.

~

Caeles slapped his bread crust onto the table and crossed his
arms, eyes wide and hard from beside that vicious scar. ‘You
remember what the captain said a few days back? There are a
thousand myths about this place,
especially
the graveyard, and any
one of them might just be based on actual truths.’

‘
You’re not saying that there’s some kind of monster out
there?’ Lanark asked.

‘
What makes you think “monster”?’

‘
Well…’ His eyes dropped to his food again. ‘Well, I’ve heard
the stories too, you know. I’m a sailor, I know all the myths and
legends surrounding this place. You don’t have to tell me that
there’s something weird out there, ‘cause I know it, and I fear it
just as surely as I’m certain there are things here that
aren’t
supposed
to be.’

‘
That’s what I’m saying,’ Caeles continued. ‘Everyone around
here knows the stories, especially the sailors. Surely there might
be some real truths in the stories that are told.’

‘
The theriopes exist, and at one time they were only myths,’
the magus said.

‘
So it’s plausible that there are other living legends out
there,’ said Caeles.

‘
Out here,’ Gabel corrected. For a moment, the conversation
stopped.

Then Lanark said, ‘Every place that has water also has
life.’

‘
What life do you think is out here?’

‘
Before the great Conflict,’ the magus said, rubbing the frayed
fabric of his sleeve between his fingers, ‘this lake was little
more than a system of rivers and swampland. The edge of the water
was thick with trees, much like the forests on the other side of
the Lual, beyond the Plains. The foliage was dense and impossible
for a man to navigate without help and tools. Places like that are
always swollen with life – animals, birds – and, in the river
network that sustained the vegetation, the waters were clogged with
life as well.’

‘
So you believe that some of the life from back then remains
here now?’ Gabel asked.

‘
Impossible. The river network opened up because of the weapons
that were used in the Conflict,’ Caeles explained irritably. The
talk of mysterious entities frustrated him. ‘Until a generation ago
this place was buzzing with radiation. No indigenous species would
have bred through that.’

‘
They may have,’ the magus said. ‘You know that they may have.
Even our own species has its divergent races.’

‘
You’re talking about errants.’

‘
What’s an arrunt?’ Lanark asked.

Caeles ignored him. ‘If there’s something out here, it’s
animal, not human, however warped a race you’re talking about.
Animals might get in our way, but they won’t stop us for long. And
on a lake, you can’t back an animal in a corner. We’ll continue as
planned and get off this damned lake as soon as we’re able. It
feels like we’ve been on it forever.’