FSF, January-February 2010 (13 page)

"You there! Who's that aboard our ship?” said a belligerent voice like a stone drawn across a rasp.

"Stowaways or customs agents!” another, shriller, speculated.

"Either way—dead men!"

What happened on the dark deck was never entirely clear to Spar. Those in the vanguard of the newcomers quickly scrambled aboard and confronted the interlopers in a muddle of violent shadows and shapes. He soon heard heavy splashing on the side opposite the dock, and then muttered consultations that ended in agreement on the advisability of a hasty departure. Relieved of his immediate apprehension, Spar considered returning to port. But there was no concord between his wishes and this crew. The men spread out through all the crannies of the ship like black wine spilled and drunk down into thirsty wood. In a goylish panic, he saw a number of them scurrying up the rigging, toward the very spot where he watched and waited.

It required no special effort for Spar to remain immobile, for movement contravenes the gargoyle's essential nature. Still, it occurred to him that any who climbed this high would be surprised to find one of the yardarms replaced by a stone arm. He hunched there like a petrified seabird, his wings slightly parted, and felt the ship begin to rock more deeply underneath, Spar himself swaying like the bob on an inverted pendulum. Faintly luminous sails of pale violet snapped out, full of the night wind, and the lights of the dock began to pull away. Spar watched until the lamps of the port were as small as the stars above, and then some dark eclipsing buttress of headland must have moved between the ship and land. They were away.

The first night passed with no further incident, save toward morning when he realized dawn would find him pinned against the sky by the mainmast, plain for all to see. While the dark still held sway, he descended slowly, avoided the more alert sailors, crept among the dozing ones, and made his way down into the hold, so packed with cartons, crates and tarpaulined lumps that he knew he could hide here undisturbed.

Except for his weight, he could be no burden to the ship's crew. An ordinary stowaway would have to pilfer the stores to survive; not so Spar. The crew ought to have no objection to his presence. Still...superstition ruled any ship. Spar knew himself to be inconsequential as long as he stayed unseen and out of the way, but sailors had been known to jettison their entire cargo for fear of the goyle it might contain.

His only regret that first day was that he had no view of sea or sky, and must wait for nightfall if he wished to find a position with more scenic potential. The seamen stumbled about on the deck; heavy weights dropped from time to time, reminding him of family footsteps; he heard the occasional clang of a bell marking hours; and once a throat-clearing figure crept down into the hold and rummaged among the supplies, kneeling out of sight for several minutes, muttering and gasping at something unseen, freezing when voices came near the hatch, then limbering up and lurching away to abovedecks when they'd moved on.

Spar watched and waited: unblinking, unbreathing, unmoved.

At last the ship grew quiet except for that occasional bell. He ascended past sleepers in swaying hammocks, climbing to a spray-damp deck.

He had missed the day entirely and was left with only stars to console him. For a time, a watchman traced the vessel's cramped byways, casting a lantern about. But soon the lantern settled and from its fixed location came irregular snoring. Water slapped the ship's sides. Spar moved toward the bow, absorbed in the pleasant tip and tilt of the deck. Something about the rhythm, leaping and falling, reminded him of the feminine creature who had beckoned him aboard.

In all his time on the ship, during last night's fray and the day's long wait, he had heard no female voice. Had she called him aboard and then slipped away herself? Or was it possible the ship might conceal another stowaway, one hidden elsewhere in the many nooks and crannies?

As he pondered possibilities, leaning forward to watch the seafoam cleaving against the prow, he saw a pale form in the water, leaping ever ahead as if narrowly outrunning the ship. At first he thought it a fish, but it swam so strong and steady, so perfectly matched to the speed of the vessel, it seemed more like a reflection of the moon traveling with them. In fact, its pallid glow was very much like that of the moon, not to mention the lovely bright features smiling up at him from the water, yet not of the water.

"Aren't you going to say hello?"

He raised his eyes and looked out through the dark wet air into which they sped—and there she was: craning around to look back at him over her shoulder. The very same one who had seemed so glad to see him board the ship last night. How was it she floated out there ahead of the craft? Why did she not turn and face him?

Finally, he saw her nature. She was fixed to the prow of the ship—was, in fact, its figurehead. A lithe yet sturdy feminine form, her figure gave only passing tribute to the mammalian bipeds that had carved her. To Spar's eye she was finer in every respect. She made him momentarily ashamed of his own crude shape.

"I beg your pardon,” he said, enraptured. As little as he saw of her—with her fullness turned away from him, suspended above the rushing dark—there was something about her that made him feel for the first time the potential of quickstone for...quickness. “Hello! Hello, indeed!"

Mainly keeping an eye on their course, she granted him another quick glance.

"And your name?” she asked.

"Spar."

She laughed.

"Why is that funny?"

"I'm amused that a creature of stone should be named for a ship's part, and the same whose role you played last night. Spar!"

"It is a respectable mineral name. I was not aware it had some maritime application."

"No matter. I did not mean to wound your dignity."

"I do not believe I possess such a thing as dignity."

"Really? I had thought you were composed entirely of it."

"This is quickstone. Not quite a homogeneous composition, but close enough. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the stuff, out here on the open water, where it has no reason to be."

"And what is your reason for being here, O Spar of Stone?"

"Nothing worth your time to hear it related,” Spar replied. “But what of yourself? Why are you here?"

"This is my grove,” she said. “Where else could I be?"

"Your grove?"

"All the timbers of the ship...we were cut from the same stand of songwood, from the same deep patch of forest. Once we stood together, old nurses and guardians, fathers and mothers, shoots and sprouts. It had always been so. Then one day the flesh came with axes and saws, and I watched my family hacked down around me. The pitiless flesh took no notice of our screams...until they reached me. Me, they could hear. When they stopped their hacking, I believed I had some power over them. But they had only stopped to congratulate themselves on their good fortune. They had been looking for songwood, which grows in rare groves like mine. Once they were sure of what they had, they commenced to cut me down. Later, another man carved me into this shape, which is hardly my true one."

"Any more than the form you see is my true form,” said Spar. “We have much in common then. I too was deeply alive, my consciousness a flicker in the span of a quickstone seam, until the day a human hacked me out in a huge block and whittled me down to this clumsy shape you see. My mind was cut off forever from the great ocean of stone."

"Your form is not unpleasing,” she said, “but I can tell that there is more to you than that."

"And to you,” said Spar. “At least water is friendly to your kind. And here you are with your grove all around you, while I am far from home and family—far from land. But will you tell me your name?"

"I am Sprit,” she said.

"Are you alone of your kind, Sprit?"

"From time to time, in certain harbors, I have seen other figureheads carved from songwood like myself. Mainly they guide the gallant ships, far too proud to consort with this dingy vessel. As you must have noticed, my crew is unsavory even by fleshy standards."

"I've seen little of them, but they were handy enough at dispatching last night's search party."

"Oh, truly, they are practiced at violence. Their captain's the cruelest of them all. I have not always belonged to him. My first owner was a placid, peaceful sort, which contributed to my falling so quickly from his possession. Each of my many masters has been nastier than the one before. You picked a fine ship to stow aboard, Spar. Still, I am glad for your company. No one here speaks to me, except occasionally to ask my seafaring advice.” She laughed. “As if I—who grew up in a deep wood, seeing stars only in winter, bound utterly to the land—would have the faintest expertise in celestial navigation or other matters maritime!"

"What do you tell them when they ask?"

"I make things up,” she said with a coy smirk. “Speak in riddles. Oh, they love that! It keeps them busy for weeks. I especially enjoy tormenting the captain with the suggestion that he is continually drifting past hidden treasures that would be his if only he weren't too obtuse to unravel my riddles. He tolerates me because, owing to his superstitious nature, he believes I bring uncommon luck. If he'd truly observe his sorry condition, he might question just how much luck I've brought him, or myself."

"Your tale saddens me,” said Spar, who felt such a twinge as he had only felt previously for stonekind. How strange that wood and stone should have so much in common—including the enemy, flesh.

"Perhaps I exaggerate,” she said. “It is all I have, I'm afraid. Now that I can no longer stretch my limbs to the sky or my roots toward deep springs, there's nothing left to reach with but my words. I was meant to regale my grove with tales and poetry and songs, but they are deaf and dumb now, mute planks. I wish to believe there's life enough left in them to feel my love. But at other times I hope they bear no wits...for how horrid it would be, trodden upon by unworthy boots, unable to change or grow or even die in a natural way."

Spar noticed a pale golden sap trickling down her cheek. He reached out and touched her side. She put out her hand and took hold of his. Together they stood for a long while, unspeaking, as the ship plowed on into the night.

Toward morning, when they reluctantly parted hands, it was as if they had grown together in the dark hours: Spar-and-Sprit. He asked her if she might suggest a hiding place with a view of the horizon, but she knew nothing except the bow. She knew not their destination, nor how long the journey might last. Rather than risk discovery, he returned to his previous place in the hold, arriving just as the first morning bell began to sound.

The second day passed much like the first, save for the new restlessness pervading him. A gargoyle was not meant to feel agitation, but Spar had trouble remaining at rest. He continually restrained himself from raising the hatch to gauge any change in the light. The bells came at interminable intervals. The tiresome voices of men, men, nothing but men. After an age, however, there came a change in the ordinary sounds of the ship. He heard a high tone raised above the grumbling, a musical note that wove and wended its way through the creaking and clanking and cursing. It took him a moment to realize Sprit was singing.

For me
? he wondered. Or was this a common occurrence? He could not imagine it was a typical treat for the sailors, and in fact it was wasted on them. The voices of the men began to whine and wheedle, full of complaint, until finally he heard the gruffest of them cry, “Shut the bitch up! If she doesn't quit, I'll carve a plug from her arm and stopper her up with it!” There was laughter at this, followed by escalating threats of mutilation and even fire. Spar grew ever more enraged and indignant. How dared they! It seemed strange they would treat her thus, if they truly believed her a talisman of luck. Yet it was not the first time the goyle had seen humans deride the very thing they knew (or anyway, believed) to be their best hope of happiness.

Finally Sprit fell silent, and there was much cheering.

Moments later, the hatch creaked open, softly shut, and feet came clomping down the steep steps. The throat-clearing figure, same as yesterday. Again, the young crewman went to a covered pile, threw back the tarp, and crouched there for some time, quietly busy. Spar gained no more insight into this activity than he had the previous day; and in fact, it would hardly have interested him had he not detected a pattern that promised to give some insight into the secret heart of men. As abruptly as before, the figure stood up, tightened and smoothed the tarp, and hurried out again. Not long after, Spar heard footsteps on the boards above. Then a small riot of voices accompanied by shuffling cards, clinking coins, shattering glass. While he waited for the men to drink themselves into their nightly stupor, he made his way over to the covered pile, to the spot where the visitor had stood, and pulled back the oily cloth to reveal a puzzling assortment of objects.

Nothing there seemed of particular value. Several warped wooden trunks with verdigris-encrusted clasps, some barrels, and a variety of objects that Spar took to be art—perhaps loot the captain had acquired in the same manner he'd taken ownership of this vessel and of Sprit. The art was a miscellany: A battered brass ewer on a length of chain. Several canvases, stretched on water-warped frames, depicting landscapes, livestock, unclothed human females. A large salad bowl fashioned of a single piece of lovely dark wood. The latter interested Spar because it made him think of Sprit. Its smooth curves, reminiscent of her strong shoulders; its polished hollows like the hollow of her throat. The mere notion that it was carved of wood, even though hardly as warm and alive as she, he found curiously compelling. In fact, who could resist? He ran his fingers along the edges of the bowl, tracing its deep concavities with solemn fascination. Was this what the crewman had also come to worship in the gloom? Had Spar discovered the beginnings of an affinity with humankind? With a care approaching reverence, he set the bowl back where he had found it, close by the forked nightmare portraits of unwholesome female flesh. He pulled the tarp back into place.