“What are they?”
“Hoppen. Minor things.”
“I thought all skir were fearsome.”
“There are indeed skir deep in the earth, beings so frightful none dare call them. But there are also small things, playful things, curious things.”
“What are they doing?”
“Feeding on the boy’s Fire,” said the Skir Master. Then he took what looked like a brush of long horsehair, a flyswatter, and waved it amid the creatures. They scattered like fish.
Argoth lifted his spectacles. The sunlight made him squint, but he saw it wasn’t horsehair at all. Only a thin bone wrapped with leather at one end. A bone from a human forearm maybe. He replaced the spectacles and lifted them again. Only part of what the Skir Master held in his hand was visible.
“Do you see the ignorant pride of humans?” said the Skir Master. “And this is only a part. Every time we extend our ability to perceive, we find a world already there.”
A chill ran through Argoth then. All his life he had thought himself wise with lore. Wise with years. And now he realized he knew nothing. When he attacked the Skir Master this night, would it be like a little boy carrying a stick attacking a man in full armor?
Argoth lowered the spectacles back to his nose. Two of the creatures returned like magpies to carrion, hovering in the air just out of the Skir Master’s reach, their bodies undulating like sea snakes in the tide.
The wind rose sharply about Argoth, tossing his hair and wetting him with sea spray. The captain let out a slow moan, and suddenly the wind was in Argoth, passing over his bones. All about him shone a brightness, a translucent presence like the rounding of a thinly tinted glass.
The presence flowed over him and then to the bowl. Argoth gasped. It was a creature as thick as a horse but far longer, tapering and flattening at each end. It coiled one end about the bowl, the rest of its body stretching along the aftercastle and ending far out over the water. Argoth thought at first it was a giant serpent, but it had no head. No mouth. Not one eye. Along its whole length undulated thousands of bright, fine hairs half as long as he. In those hairs smaller creatures moved like band fish in the tentacles of an immense anemone.
“What is it?” Argoth asked.
“An ayten,” said the Skir Master.
The ayten inserted one of its ends into the bowl and began to feel the boy with its bright hairs.
“How they can eat both Fire and soul,” said the Skir Master, “we do not know. But when she’s finished the sacrifice will be hollow.”
The boy cried out. A soft moan that rose into a desperate keening.
Then the ayten bent that end and pressed into the bowl, engulfing the boy in its hairs. The hairs tossed and jerked as if the boy struggled within them. Then they were still. “Lords,” said Argoth in horror.
“An amazing thing,” said the captain, “isn’t it?”
Amazing was not the word Argoth would have used. When he finally found his voice, he said, “And this creature then powers the ship?”
“No,” said the Skir Master, raising his hand and pointing behind Argoth. “She does.”
Argoth turned, looked up, and the immensity of what he saw stole his breath.
Off port and high in the air flew a pale blue behemoth; it stretched hundreds of yards across, dozens deep. A mountain of a manta ray, flying toward them over the waves, its wings undulating with slow power. A multitude of other creatures whirled about it like gulls about a ship.
A fear rose in Argoth. He hadn’t felt this since he was a boy standing on the banks of a river and seeing something monstrous turning in the murky green waters at his feet.
“That,” said the Skir Master, “is Shegom.”
Argoth lifted the spectacles. He could discern nothing in the air. He replaced the spectacles, saw the behemoth dive nearer the water. He lifted the spectacles again.
The evidence of her passing was clear: the water fluttered and flattened out as if a white squall passed over it. The strip was darker than the sea about it, reflecting the sun differently. It seemed almost calm in the center, but at its edges the wind kicked up a scud of thick sea spray as it went. Argoth wondered if all dust devils and squalls he had seen were merely the effect of a passing skir.
Suddenly the squall picked up speed.
The captain braced himself. Argoth did the same and lowered his spectacles.
The creature bore down upon them. It covered the distance to the ship in only a few breaths, kicking up a huge wall of sea spray. Just before the wall broke upon the ship, the Skir Master said, “It’s a large one, my beauty. Enjoy the feast.”
The sea spray soaked Argoth, then the wind slammed into him, almost ripping him from the railing. Again, something passed over and through him, the cold literally sweeping his heart. The ship leaned with the gale.
The noise of the wind grew to a screech. He felt his spectacles almost torn from his face, then the wind lessened, and the ship rocked back.
Argoth caught his breath and turned.
Long hairs covered Shegom’s body. But along the edge of where he imagined her head would be grew a beard of whips or tentacles. She held the struggling ayten with these.
The ayten thrashed, trying to break her hold, but Shegom shook it violently, then wrapped her prey with more of the long whips.
Another thrash, then the ayten sagged. Shegom enfolded it in the hairs along her belly just underneath her front edge. Then with a gust of wind and sea spray, she rose above the ship.
“Where is the hook?”
“Hook?” asked the captain.
“Was that not the bait?”
“She’s already mine,” said the Skir Master. He gestured at a weave inlaid in the deck at his feet. “She’s long been a part of this ship.”
“But I thought your skir died on the way.”
“Of course, you did,” said the Skir Master. “That’s why I started that rumor. Tell me, Clansman.” He gestured at the bowl and Shegom. “Does your lore even touch this?”
An alarm sounded in his mind. But then the fear drained away and he felt a bit giddy. “No,” he said.
“I didn’t think so. How many are in your Grove?”
“Almost a dozen,” said Argoth.
He knew he shouldn’t be saying such things. Not with the captain standing right there. Not to the Skir Master. It was death, but… did that matter really?
“And you’re their leader?”
Again the warning. Again it drained away. The Skir Master’s ghostly shape moved toward him. Why had they ever thought they should fight against such marvelous beings? Then he realized what was happening. The Skir Master was seeking him. But how? Panic rose in him.
The spectacles. That was how he was doing this. But seekings were accompanied by bindings and torture.
Argoth raised his hand to remove the weave.
“Leave them on,” said the Skir Master.
Yes, that was wise. It would be nice to have them off, but it didn’t seem to matter much either way.
“Are you the leader?” asked the Skir Master.
Argoth tried to remember his training.
“Answer me.”
He fought against the compulsion. He needed to remove the weave. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”
“Who is?”
Argoth succeeded in reaching the weave.
“Leaf,” said the Skir Master. “I believe we’re going to have to restrain him.”
“Great One,” said Leaf. He approached Argoth. The tattoos flaring out from the man’s eyes made him look wild.
Argoth took one step back. He needed to do something, but couldn’t remember what it was.
“Stand still,” said the Skir Master.
The weave. He needed to remove it. Argoth gripped it with both hands. It took all his effort. Then he ripped it from his face. The world of sunshine and sea burst upon him. He squinted, cast the spectacles from him, and began to build his Fire.