* * *
Of the countless freebooters, hijackers, and outright pirates of the south Genabackan coast and the archipelago of the Free Confederacy, Burl Tardin knew he wasn’t the first to hear word of a rich gold strike in the legendary north Assail lands. He knew also that he was not the first to set out south to dare the stormy Galatan Sweep and from there pass onward, entering the semi-mythical Sea of Hate as it was known in the old lays. And he knew that though he was not even the first to succeed in said crossings, at great risk and cost, it was an achievement worthy of song all the same.
This he became certain of as he passed the shattered hulls of Genabackan vessels lying strewn along what those self-same old songs and stories named the ‘Wreckers’ Coast.’
He did, however, suspect that he was among the first to reach the gauntlet of rocks known as the Guardians. These rocks, and the twisted course between, choked Fear Narrows, the entrance to the inland Dread Sea – which some also called the Sea of Dread. He did believe he was the first of his compatriots to manage this particular miracle of seamanship.
And now he, his vessel – the Sea Strike – and his crew lay becalmed somewhere on the pale milky waters of the Dread Sea. His crew manned the oars, of course, though progress was hard to determine among the near constant mists and fogs that shrouded the stars at night and obscured the unfamiliar coast by day. Many were for putting in until the damned fogs abated, but he suspected that such conditions were unavoidable here in these strange lands and waters. Besides, each time they’d put in for water, or to hunt, hostile locals had met them and they’d put spears through four of his crew.
Banks of the thick mists drifted by like smoke to enmesh them in their clinging arms. Dark shapes seemed to loom through the fogs. Other ships, perhaps, just as lost. His lookouts shouted but only their own calls echoed back across the waters. Or so Burl assumed, as the returning shouts sounded eerily like voices in other languages calling their warning. Perhaps even crying their panic.
‘Sea-monster!’ a lookout warned one morning and Burl almost ordered the poor fellow to come down as his eyes were playing tricks upon him. But others called now, pointing to port, where a dark shape closed upon them. Long and tall it was in the fog. By the great sea-god himself, Burl swore, amazed: a sea-dragon.
The fog parted in swirling wafts and the lookout voiced a panicked: ’Ware! Ice!’
‘Stave it off!’ Burl bellowed.
The crew on the starboard side jumped to unship their oars while those on the port raised theirs and braced themselves. The huge shard of emerald ice came brushing up against the slim wooden poles. Wood shattered and crewmen grunted and shouted their pain as the oars lashed among them. Hernen went down with a shattered skull as one slammed him on the side of the head in a sickening wet crack.
The Sea Strike lurched under a side-swiping blow. Its planks groaned, and all aboard were thrown from their feet. Ice clattered in a gleaming shower to the decking where the shards lay steaming.
‘Check the hull!’ Burl ordered and clambered to his feet. ‘Clear that ice.’
‘Aye,’ First Mate Whellen answered.
The great ice behemoth coursed on, not even scarred by its encounter. Burl watched it go, eerily silent, once more merging into the bank of hanging fog. ‘Hull’s still sound,’ his master carpenter reported and Burl nodded his relief.
A scream of pain snapped their attention to amidships. Whellen stood staring at his hands. Burl ran to him. ‘Gods, what is it?’
The mate stood gazing at his hands, wordless. Burl yanked on his shoulder. ‘Speak, man!’
The mate raised his eyes and Burl flinched away: they seemed utterly empty of awareness. ‘It burns,’ the mate whispered, awed. ‘The ice burns.’ Then he collapsed to the wet planking.
Burl ordered the man wrapped in blankets and thought nothing more of it – he had a ship to check for soundness and an entire crew to handle. He had spare oars drawn and those that could be repaired kept. Yet they were now short of a full complement and when the crew returned to rowing they made even less progress than before.
The next day they sighted a vessel. It was a vague motionless silhouette in the mists at first. Oaring closer they hailed it, but no answer came. Burl ordered a cautious approach. The half of the crew not rowing hurried to ready weapons. As they closed the gap, the lines of the vessel revealed themselves in a form never before seen by him or his crew.
Long and narrow it was, a galley just like the Strike, but larger, and closed, not open-hulled. It lay becalmed, the sails of its one mast limp. To Burl it looked abandoned, like some sort of ghost ship. ‘Hello, vessel!’ he shouted again.
When no one answered he ordered the Strike closer and a small boarding party readied, led by the second mate, Gaff. Whellen still lay abed, stricken with whatever ailment it was that had hold of him.
The Strike bumped up amidships and the party clambered aboard. Burl and the crew waited and watched, weapons in hand. They did not have long to wait. Immediately, it seemed to him, the boarding party returned. They swung legs out over the taller side and jumped or eased themselves down. Burl searched among them for Gaff. Quiet they were, pale even. He found the man and looked him up and down. ‘Well?’
His second mate just shook his head, unable to speak. Unnervingly, Burl was reminded of Whellen’s reaction to holding the ice. The man shakily drew a sleeve across his sweaty glistening brow and swallowed as if pushing back bile. ‘Gone,’ he managed. ‘All gone.’
Burl scanned the rocking vessel. Its waterline foamed heavy with weeds and barnacles, as if it had lain becalmed in the water for years. ‘Dead? How?’
‘No, not dead, sir. Gone. She’s empty of all crew. Not one soul, living or dead. A ghost ship.’
‘Cut loose? An accident?’
The second mate rubbed his arms as if chilled, his gaze lingering on the silent vessel. ‘No sir. ’Tis as if the crew up and walked off during a voyage. Ropes lay half coiled. Meals still on the table. Still fresh.’
‘Fresh? How could that be? Any ship’s rudder?’
Gaff shook his head. ‘Didn’t look, sir.’
‘Didn’t look? Gods and demons, man! Get back on board and find the pilot’s rudder.’
Gaff jerked a negative. ‘Nay, sir. The vessel’s cursed. We must push off.’
Burl had been about to send the men back aboard to gather supplies and any potable water, but he noted the fierce nods that the second mate’s words collected. He saw the signs raised against evil and a kind of atavistic fear in the gazes of all. And as a sailor himself he knew how deep-rooted such superstitions could lie. He also knew he led by support of these men and so he merely gestured his contempt, muttering, ‘Very well. If you must.’
Gaff’s nod of acknowledgement was firm. He turned to the boarding party. ‘You brought nothing, yes? Good. Can’t risk the curse.’ Then he shouted to the rest of the crew: ‘Now cast off! Back oars!’
‘And just what curse is this, Gaff?’ Burl enquired, as the foreign vessel slid phantom-like into the fogs.
‘Sea of Dread, sir. Drives men insane, they say.’
Burl had heard such stories and songs. Tales of ships mysteriously abandoned. Floating hulks empty of all crew. He’d only half believed them before now. Why would a crew abandon a perfectly seaworthy vessel? It must have come from some nearby port. Slipped free of its mooring lines, surely. The crew wouldn’t just up and jump into the water!
Burl now became aware of his men murmuring among themselves. Even as they pulled strongly on the oars they spoke to one another under their breath. He heard much re-telling and re-sorting of all the hoary old tales of such ghost ships and curses. And repeated among the men he heard the name whispered like a curse itself: Dread Sea. Sea of Dread. The Dreadful Sea.
And now like the thick choking fog itself he felt that selfsame dread coiling about the entire ship. And he thought, perhaps it was too late. Perhaps all it took was some chance encounter with strangeness to taint the mind and the imagination – and this was the curse itself.