"This storm ..." Ligeia said to me on the morning of the seventh day.
"Yes?" I said.
"It seems to be ending now."
I reached out to knock on a wooden railing. "Thank God!" I added. "Sailors really do have it worse than soldiers. I'm ready to believe it now."
"Don't. Not yet," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure this storm was natural."
"Oh?"
"Just at the end here, just for a moment, I thought I felt her fatigue, allowing a slight slippage of control where personality might show through."
"Go slow," I said. "I'm not at my best."
"I believe they have Annie drugged again," she stated, "and that she was the motive force behind this storm. But a week—even with drugs and mesmerism—was about as much as she could manage. After all, they don't want to hurt her permanently. She has greater uses than simply brushing us out of the way."
"Are you sure of this?" I asked.
"No, I'm not," she replied. "Even under the influence her mind is a subtle thing."
There was a lull with a clearing that afternoon. The crew actually cheered on seeing a blue sky for the first time in what seemed ages. More pumping and patching were undertaken. Fortunately, the masts had remained intact.
In a way, I guess, it was good that a lot of work was going on, as the sails had not been run up again when the next storm broke, when they simply would have had to come down again.
And so we rode for a day, and Ligeia assured me that it was a natural storm and not one of Annie's doings. It delivered us to another and yet another took over after that. We were below the equator now, somewhere in the Tropic of Capricorn and still being driven south. Ligeia still felt this was simply a piece of seasonal bad fortune.
Finally, it broke, and the skies stayed clear that day, that night, and on into the next day. All refurbishings were effected, a propitious breeze came upon us. We ran up sail and turned our nose north.
The crew cheered again. The demons had departed. The hour was ours and it was golden. People sang and whistled at their tasks. Hernandez was instructed to produce an extra-fine dinner, which he did.
The good wind held, and the sky was clear as the sun went down. What more could we ask that night when we crawled into bed, more content perhaps than in an age of days?
The next tempest struck like an angel with a fiery sword, and this by far was the worst of them all. I was up, dressed and out on the deck in a trice, for it might well be that every hand were needed, to struggle yet another time against the weather's perversity. This time, several crew members were lost overboard, as well as sail and rigging. Even one mast splintered and went by the board, leaving the Eidolon halfcrippled, though still in no immediate danger of sinking or capsizing. It was fortunate we had been able to complete our latest round of repairs before this one broke.
For many days it persisted. We could no more guess at our position on the sea. But this time there was a different feeling to it. On several occasions I experienced the same sense of communication and division as I had back on the coach during our flight: It was as if Poe were somehow near again—somehow.
And then Ligeia told me, "She walks the night like some dark goddess of old. This is Annie's storm.
Directed at us."
"Not of her own volition surely!"
"She is not their creature out of choice," she replied. "They have succeeded in gaining control of her again."
"Is there nothing you can do? Or Valdemar?"
"Valdemar still suffers his psychic blindness wherever Annie is concerned. As for myself, I have been holding her back as best I could for some time now. I think we should be on the bottom by now, except for the few small victories I have achieved. She has grown incredibly strong."
"Is there nothing that can be done?"
She shook her head.
"We must wait for her to tire again. I cannot attack her directly, but only defend against the attacks she sends. Once she tires, we must head for the nearest shore. Otherwise she'll swamp us, sooner or later."
And so it went, Ligeia shielding us as best she could. The following day I was in the rigging trying to cut loose some tangled lines and shrouds which threatened to take down another mast. Oddly, the altitude bothered me less during the storm than it had on a fine, clear day.
I doubt I could have heard a shout from below, against the awesome scream of the wind. For some reason I glanced downward, however, and I saw a pair of crewmen needlessly exposing themselves to the elements, holding tightly to a stanchion, one of them pointing to starboard. I shifted my gaze in that direction to find myself completely confounded by the vision presented there.
A ghostly vessel came on, plowing through the heavy seas like some sailing juggernaut. St. Elmo's fire danced upon its spars, pale green luminescence against the blackness of cloud, lightning flashes granting its deck occasional fleeting shadows. The craft gave the impression of enormous age, and was built in a style of centuries ago. But it was larger than any ship so designed had a right to be. Most frightening of all was the fact that it bore full sail, in the very teeth of the storm.
Again, I had the momentary impression that Poe was somehow near. And then it seemed that Annie was, also. She was fighting with Templeton, struggling against whatever drug or artifice he had administered.
I knew this because I heard her call my name, sounding as if she had just come out of a deep slumber.
This occurred as the thought crossed my mind that I might hail the approaching vessel. But there was no time.
Annie screamed just as the two ships collided, and it seemed to me that I was hurled bodily into the stranger's rigging by the impact.
At first, I had no doubt that the crash was physical. But later I was to conclude that my transition from one ship to the other had been something of an entirely different nature.
That the universe might endure ... it was required ... that the stars should be gathered into visibility from invisible nebulosity—proceed from nebulosity to consolidation—and so grow gray in giving birth to unspeakably numerous and complex variations of vitalic development ... during the period in which all things were effecting their return into Unity with a velocity accumulating in the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances at which lay the inevitable End.
Eureka, Edgar Allan Poe
XI
To the few who have loved me and whom I love—to those who feel rather than to those who think—to the dreamers and those who put their faith in dreams as in the only realities—I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone:—
let us say a romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem.
Eureka Edgar Allan Poe
Clinging to the ancient lines, one foot upon a spar, I watched as the two vessels separated. I found that I still clutched the knife I had been using, and I resheathed it against future need. If only there were one more roll bringing our rigging near again I felt that I might spring back to my former perch. Alas, the strange vessel's momentum carried it far beyond the Eidolon before it rolled again. Odd as it seemed, looking back and looking down, I saw that neither gave evidence of having suffered damage in the collision; and the Eidolon was still afloat when she vanished from sight.
Slowly, I worked my way down from the rigging, those great sails bellied and booming about me like Titanic instruments of music, my course directed toward the swinging lanterns far below.
The first thing I realized when I set foot upon the deck was that things seemed more stable here below.