07. Ghost of the Well of Souls (20 page)

Algensor, a Kehudan passenger she'd rarely spoken to, came on deck. The Kehudans looked delicate enough to be blown away in a stiff breeze; their hex was all water, yet they were air breathers—silvery, heart-shaped, insectlike beings with thin, inverted V's for legs. It was said they lived and even built somehow on the surface of the waves. Algensor was on her way home even though the ship spent very little time in her home hex's waters. Now, after saying virtually nothing to her or most anybody since Jaysu had boarded, the silvery creature wanted to talk. Jaysu had trouble reading the Kehudan 's empathic elements, which were so contradictory as to be meaningless.

"They are preparing for Mogari," Algensor said out of the blue.

"Mogari?" Jaysu repeated, shaking her head, a bit ashamed of her ignorance.

"We are about to hit what mariners call the Eastern Wall," the Kehudan explained. "Along here there are a sequence of nontech hexes joined so that it is impossible to avoid one without sailing a thousand kilometers around. Since ships of this size and weight are not good sailboats, they avoid non-tech hexes when possible save as destinations. Thus, the ship slows, the machinery below redistributes cargo and ballast so it is as optimized for sail as possible, and the boilers are brought down to a simmer, as it were, from a boil. They cannot afford to let them go out, but the steam pressure must be constantly vented or it will blow up in a nontech environment. It cannot reach the aft propellers and drive the ship forward. You may boil water in a nontech hex, but if you try and route it, it will blow up, and so you must vent it harmlessly."

"I am well aware of this principle," she told the silvery creature. "My own home allows no machinery that is not powered by wind, water, or muscle directly." It had not, however, occurred to her that what didn't seem much of a problem at home would be a serious problem to a ship of this size and weight.

"The crew is professional enough," Algensor noted approvingly. "The problem is speed and handling. We will be at the mercy of the winds, and, after entering, our speed will be cut from a bit more than twenty kilometers per hour to perhaps six or seven. We will spend as much or more time going down a mere single edge of Mogari as we did to sail all the way here from where you boarded, perhaps much more. Then we will gain power back and turn sharply southwest. It will be sailing the wrong way, almost, for where the ship is bound, but it will be speedy and will allow them to route the rest of the way almost entirely in hexes where the engines can be used. Once the Wall is cleared, though, it will be ten days or so to landfall in Pyron. I, of course, shall be gone by then."

Jaysu wasn't cheered by the news. Ten days! How was she going to stand it? Still, if it could be mostly in high-tech hexes, she could adjust. Or was that sinful decadence creeping in? Was her faith really that shallow? She hoped not.

She turned at the cry of the mate to the crew and saw the hex wall looming ahead. It looked just like all the others, a kind of dark, shimmering mass that you could nonetheless see through, and which seemed to go all the way to heaven and from horizon to horizon.

With the crew positioned all through the masts and rigging, she was surprised to see the ship suddenly roar into life, as if revving up to maximum speed. It took a kilometer or so, but it was getting up a head of steam when it reached the wall. Then all power was cut, and it seemed as if the world suddenly stood still as the vibrations of the engines and from equipment below shut down.

The ship slid through the hex wall and the quiet became even eerier. It was as if someone had suddenly made them all deaf and without a sense of feeling, but there was the sound of wind and wave and the bow breaking through surf.

And then the loudest series of noises she had ever heard threatened to make her deaf for real, as three stacks blew their ship's whistles full and didn't seem to let up. Getting a headache from the terrible noise, she almost ran back inside. Even the sliding door didn't mask the noise completely, but at least it was no longer deafening.

The little purser was coming from the dining lounge at that moment, apparently lighting the internal oil lamps. He saw her and immediately guessed what had happened.

"So sorry," he called to her, and her eardrums were so shocked he sounded a million kilometers away. "Should have warned you. Got to do that. Let steam out. Otherwise we go
bang
really fast. They won't do it forever. Just have to get pressure down. Once the boilers are down to minimum, they only do it twice a day, at breakfast and at dinner, and not for so long."

"It is all right," she assured the little Kuall. "I am aboard for a long time yet, it seems, and whatever will be is at least some break from the routine."

"Could be more big break, yep yep," the purser warned her. "Big storm coming up."

That was unnerving. There were some things that made boredom seem acceptable. "Will it be bad?"

"Could be. Yep yep. We will head right for it, see."

"You don't try and go around such things?"

"Not most times, nope nope. Got to keep to route and schedule. But in nontech hex, we
like
storms, you see.
Big
wind. Dangerous for crew, but they know how to do their jobs, yep yep. Just stay off outside decks while we're in the storm and always hold on to something. Faster we go, rougher it gets, but we'll make speed."

She made her way back to the upper deck passenger lounge, which was just below her cabin. It had heavy reinforced glass windows all around, and from it you could see what the captain and bridge crew were seeing two decks up in the wheelhouse.

Wally was in there, without his little friends at the moment, and so were two or three other passengers. She was getting to know everybody aboard; there weren't all that many people, after all, and there was even less to do.

After a couple of days of powered light the lounge looked dark, shadowy, almost sinister, but it was more than adequate for most races, and for her. This was, after all, fairly normal lighting for Ambora, although they were using some tricks with mirrors and such to make the smaller sealed oil lamps as bright as the near torches Amborans tended to favor.

Out ahead she could see the darkness, almost as if the bright dawn was being reversed, turned back into night. It was a natural sight on a clear horizon; she'd seen it many times herself from the Amboran cliffs. Still, she was home when she was on the Amboran cliffs, and could retreat into structures of thick wood or stone. Out here she was aware that the ship was the sole anchor for her existence. Nobody could fly in that stuff, not with those winds and violent downdrafts, and lifeboats would fare poorly if it were rough enough to sink a ship. The purser was right about one thing, though— although there was a clear way around to the south, the captain was heading right for the darkness.

"It is still difficult to not hear and feel the engines," Wally commented, almost certainly to her, though apparently to nobody in particular. "It had become so much a part of the day-to-day. Good morning, my dear. I hope you slept well." This was clearly directed toward her.

"As well as I can in this confinement," she answered. "I was not made for this sort of living."

"Who was? I suggest that you go to the first-class mess and eat some breakfast now. It is still hot and properly cooked and prepared, but things will be getting rough soon and they will have to put it away or it will go flying. I fear we'll eat a lot worse until we clear this hex."

She decided that he had a point, and made her way back to the small restaurant amidships. Normally you could walk in and get what you needed any time of the day or night, but apparently things would be different for a while.

She could feel the tension, both on the part of the passengers in the lounge and even the stewards in the restaurant and other crew that she passed. Clearly this was not going to be an experience they relished.

They were securing almost everything that was loose when she entered, although two of them took some time out to prepare an Amboran sweet cereal for her, garnished with native fruits. Still, everybody was so frantic she wasn't sure she would have time to eat before things started to happen, and she didn't want to think of what those things might be.

She thought of Eggy and wondered what these storms were like under the sea. Probably not as bad as up here, she decided. They said that you didn't have to go far down to be almost completely ignorant that a storm was even raging above. She wouldn't know; Amborans could manage an emergency float in a pinch, and even do a snatch and grab on fish just below the surface, but the oils in their feathers were not dense enough or insulating enough to allow them to swim.

"I, too, fly," the creature had told her, but not in the air. What a strange variety of creatures there were in this world.

Before she finished her breakfast, the storm hit, or, more properly, they hit the storm, and things began to lurch. The action, which became rhythmic but unceasing, frightened her, and she saw concern even in the eyes of the stewards, creatures of several races who now rushed to gather up the last loose bowls, plates, bottles, and utensils and get them under either locked bars or netting. They tried to allow her to complete her meal, but she was no longer hungry, and it wasn't much fun eating, anyway, when most of the time you were trying to keep your bowl and spoon on the table.

As loose goblets and cups began flying, she understood why there was little or no glassware in the restaurant. It was wooden or some sort of artificial substance that was smooth and molded.

Some of the stewards were more sure-footed than others. Some were clearly at home in a surface of rough water, or just seemed built to stick to whatever they were standing on.

Now, holding onto the table, she wondered how she was going to make it anywhere more comfortable, even to the lounge. She wasn't one of those who stuck to things, and her tough feet and claws occasionally lost their footing even when sailing was smooth.

One of the stewards, a creature that seemed more like a walking plant than an animal—with leafy arms and a head like a pastel blue and pink head of cabbage—was one of the stick-to-the-floor types, and he approached her.

"Take my arm," it invited her. "I will make certain you get to the walking rope. Can you manage from there?"

She wasn't sure, but said, "Yes. Thank you."

The "arm" was covered with little leafy smaller arms and ended in a "hand" of three rubbery, long fingers. The creature's grip, though, was surprisingly strong, and its footing as steady as a rock. She pulled herself up, depending on its grip, and allowed it to pull her to the bulkhead and the thick guide rope. She used her free hand to grab the rope, then said, "All right! You can let go now!"

"Use both of your hands and grip hard," the steward warned, guiding her other hand to the rope and ensuring that she had a two-handed grip before releasing her.

She immediately saw what it meant by the suggestion.

She had never before been moving in so many directions at once, not even in the air. The ship didn't just rock back and forth, it also simultaneously moved side to side, and at the end of one sequence of motion it seemed to literally twist, first one way and then the other.

She made her way forward, slipping once but catching herself on the rope before she fell, and nervously made her way forward, out of the restaurant doorway, and across the common area and stairwells, toward the lounge. As she passed this area, she could look out of the sliding doors, but wasn't sure it had been a good idea. Although it was still early morning, it was pitch-black out there, broken by dramatic flashes of lightning. Some of the sounds she'd assumed in the restaurant were ship noises, she now realized were thunder. She couldn't help but wonder about the poor crew on those masts, and hoped they'd all found some shelter before the ship entered this terrible environment.

Getting into the lounge not only didn't help, the row of rectangular windows provided a frightening panorama that was a terrible dark gray, with lightning all around and rain beating against the windows. Worse, though, was that she could see the bow of the ship stretched out in front and below her, and the gigantic waves breaking over it, some, it seemed, as high as this upper deck!

The raging sea would roll over and the entire bow would dip and then vanish under the water, followed by that funny twisting motion, and then, almost miraculously, the bow would rise back out of the depths to repeat the sequence. It was dramatic, and scary. Each time, it seemed as if the bow would never rise back up, and if it didn't, they were going down, and fast.

It was the greatest test of faith she'd ever undergone, because she was completely helpless; she could do nothing to make it stop.

Jaysu was surprised to find nobody else in the lounge area. They were probably all riding it out in their cabins, she thought, since there was little you could do but be frightened in such conditions.

She wondered about the crew, who apparently took this as just another part of the job. How many times did they go through this in a month, a year, whatever? Was it ever routine?

"Quite a magnificent sight, is it not?" a familiar voice commented above and behind her. She jumped, turned, and saw Wally rise from a flat deck area between two types of seating in the back.

"Oh—I'm sorry," she responded. "I didn't realize anyone was here."

"Racial habit, I'm afraid. We're natural lurkers," the giant spider commented.

"I expected more passengers here," she told him.

"Most land passengers are busily giving their breakfasts back to nature," he told her. "The others have pretty well anchored themselves in. My two associates are all right but rather small, and they found themselves unable to stand erect under these conditions and so have battened themselves down, as it were. I suspect that your stomach and general balance are also all right, being a flier."

She hadn't thought of that. Of course, the action of the ship, while alien, wasn't as extreme as some flying maneuvers she did routinely, and she always knew where the ground was. "Yes, but it does not mean that I can stand on hard, polished wood in this movement," she replied. "In the air it is I who control the movements, and I am not subject to traction."