One by one my shipmates stirred the slightest, then returned to their long rests.
Sometimes in darkness, sometimes in light, the caravel glided northward. The shadowweaver ran its shuttle to and fro. No foul weather came to gnaw on our ragged floating Hell. The fog surrounding us neither advanced nor receded, nor did the water we sailed ever change. It always resembled polished jade.
My shipmates did not move again.
Then darkness descended upon me, the oblivion for which I had longed since my realization that Vengeful Dragon was not just another pirate, but a seagoing purgatory manned by the blackest souls of the western world....
And while I slept in the embrace of the Dark Lady, the weaver weaved. The ship changed. So did her crew. And the watchbirds followed in dismay.
IV
A dense fog gently bumped Itaskia's South Coast. It did not cross the shoreline. The light of a three-quarters moon gleamed off its lowlying upper surface. It looked like an army of woolballs come to besiege the land.
A ship's main truck and a single spar cut the fog's surface like a shark's fin, moving north.
The moon set. The sun rose. The fog dissipated gradually, revealing a pretty caravel. She had a new but plain look, like a miser's beautiful wife cloaked in homespun.
The fog dwindled to a single irreducible cloud. That refused to disperse. It drifted round the ship's decks. Black birds dipped in and out.
I began to itch all over. My skin twitched. Awareness returned. Straining, I opened my eyes.
The sun blazed in. I decided to roll over instead.
It was the hardest thing I had ever done. A physical prodigy.
Battered old Colgrave staggered to his feet. He leaned on the helm and scanned the gentle sea. He wore a bewildered frown.
Here, there, my shipmates stirred. Who would the survivors be? Barley, the deadly coward? Priest, the obnoxious religious hypocrite? The Kid, whose young soul had been blackened by more murders than most of us older men? My almost-friend, Little Mica, whose sins I had never discovered? Lank Tor? Toke? Fat Poppo? The Trolledyngjan? There were not many I would miss if they did not make it.
I climbed my bow like a pole. I could feel the expression graven on my face. It was wonder. It tingled through me right down to my toenails.
We had no business being anywhere but perpetually buried in that sorcerer's trap.
I scanned the horizon suspiciously, checked the maindeck, then met my Captain's eyes. There was no love between us, but we respected one another. We were the best at what we were.
He shrugged. He, too, was ignorant of what was happening.
I had wondered if he had not brought the resurrection about by sheer force of will.
I bent and collected an oiled leather case. Inside lay twelve arrows labeled with colored bands, and several new bowstrings. My bow, which had been exposed for so long, had been restored by careful oiling and rubbing. I strung and tested it. It remained as powerful as ever. I did not then have the strength to bend it completely.
A dozen men were afoot. They searched themselves for wounds that had disappeared during the darkness. I wondered how many had shared my vigil of impotent awareness, denied even the escape of madness.
They started checking each other. I looked for Mica. I spotted the little guy studying himself in a copper mirror. He ran fingers over a face that had been half torn away. Everyone was recovering.
I descended to the maindeck and strolled aft. Dragon was in the best shape I had ever seen. She had been renewed...
I walked stiffly. The others moved jerkily, like marionettes manipulated by a novice. I reached the ladder to the poop as vanguard of a committee. Our First Officer and Boatswain, Toke and Lank Tor, had joined me. Old Barley tagged along, hoping the Old Man would order a ration of rum.
Barley was one of the alcoholic in group. Priest was another. He was watching Barley closely. Barley always did the doling.
Rum! My mouth watered. Only Priest could outdrink me.
Colgrave shooed his deck watch down the starboard ladder.
Why hadn't our mysterious benefactors done a full repair job on the Captain? I looked round. Several men had not been restored completely. We were as we had been the day we had stumbled into the Itaskian sorcerer's trap.
Colgrave was first to speak. He said, "Something's happened." Not an ingenious deduction.
My response was no more brilliant. "We've been called back."
Colgrave's voice had a remote, sephulcral timbre. It seemed to reach us after a journey up a long, cold, furniture-crowded hallway. There was no force in it. It had no volume, and very little inflection.
"Tell me something I don't know,
Bowman," Colgrave growled.
The lack of love between us was not unique. This crew had shipped together, and fought together, by condemnation of the gods. We cooperated only because survival demanded it.
"Who did? Why?" I demanded. Again I scanned the horizons.
I was not a lone watcher. We had powerful enemies along these coasts. Dread enemies, they had at their disposal the aid of men like the one who had banished us to that enchanted sea.
"We don't have time to worry about it." Colgrave threw a spidery hand at the coast. "That's Itaskia, gentlemen. We're only eight leagues south of the Silverbind Estuary."
The Itaskian Navy had sent that sorcerer after us. Itaskians hated us. Especially Itaskian merchants. We had plundered them so often that we used gold and silver for ballast.
We had preyed on them for ages, slaughtering their crews and burning their ships during our relentless search for what, in the end, had proven to be ourselves.
The great naval base at Portsmouth lay just inside the mouth of the, estuary.
"Coast watchers have spotted us by now," Colgrave continued. "The news will have reached Portsmouth. The fleet will be coming out."
It did not occur to us that we could have been forgotten. Or that we might not be recognized. But we did not know how long we had been gone, nor did Dragon look the same.
"We better get this bastard headed out to sea," Tor said. "Head for the nether coast of Freyland. Hole up in a cove till we know what's happening." Some timbre entered the Boatswain's voice. It smelled of fear.
We had never been well known in the island kingdoms. Seldom had we plundered there.
"We'll do that. Meantime, check out this tub from stem to stern. Check the men. Tor, take a look round from the tops. They could be after us already."
Tor had the best eyes of any man I've ever known.
The crew milled below, touching each other, speculating in soft tones. Their voices, too, sounded remote. I do not know why that was. It soon corrected itself.
"First watch," Tor called. "Rigging. Prepare to shift sail for the seaward tack."
They moved slowly, stiffly, but sorted themselves out. Some clambered into the rigging. Lank Tor said, "Ready to shift course, Captain."
Colgrave spun the wheel. Tor bellowed to the topmen.
Nothing happened.
Colgrave tried again. And again. But Vengeful D. would not respond.
We just stood round staring at one another till Kid called down, "Sail ho!"
V
"Boatswain, see to the weapons," Colgrave ordered.
I looked at him narrowly. A fire was building within him. Action imminent. The old Colgrave flared through, despite what we had endured, despite what we had learned about ourselves. "See that sand is scattered on the decks. Barley! One cup for all hands. Bowman. Take yours first. Go to the forecastle."
Our gazes locked. I had had my fill of killing. At least for this madman.
But the compulsion was still there. The fire that forced a man to adapt his will to Colgrave's. I looked down like a kid who had just been scolded. I descended to the maindeck.
Mica caught up with me. "Bow-man. What's going on? What happened to us?"
He called me Bowman because he did not know my name. None of them did, unless Colgrave had penetrated the secret. It was one I could no longer answer myself.