The hold was noisy with the creaking rudder chain, the slap of the waves against the hull, the incessant sloshing of the bilge somewhere beneath his feet and the groaning of ratlines against pins between braces in the bulkhead, Steven attuned his eyes to the shadows; his ears would do him little good on this hunting trip.
In the aft corner, starboard behind the mainmast, there were several hogsheads, filled, he guessed, with drinking water, capped and lashed to one another and then to the bulkhead to keep them from tipping or rolling about in heavy seas. In the opposite corner there were wooden boxes, likewise stacked and lashed to the beam supports. Finally, beneath the hatch, tucked under the stairs, was a dwindling stack of wood for the galley oven, purchased in Orindale before the Morning Star set sail for the Northern Archipelago.
Apart from these, the main hold was empty.
Halfway to the barrels, the magic crept up on him. Most of the lines, pulleys and braces blurred, but overall, the hold remained in focus, the grain of the planks easy to see. ‘So you’re in here somewhere,’ Steven said, ‘but where?’
Even without the noise, Steven would not have heard the tanbak’s tiny sentry coming for him. He was focusing his attention on the shadowy places, the dark nooks and cracks between and behind the hogsheads; he hadn’t expected the spider-beetle to come from above.
There was a place on the mainmast – where it passed through the upper deck – around which was coiled a length of hawser, maybe where Marrin or Sera had at one time tied off the last bit of line after securing a large cargo. A small ship like the Morning Star often hauled as much as her crew could stuff into the comparatively little storage area; it wasn’t uncommon to use the mast as an extra brace. Here, the forgotten rope had provided an ideal hiding place for the tanbak’s little hunter, which had waited, uncertain which of the crew to take, recognising, after sensing the defeat of its mistress, that there were powerful sorcerers on board.
And one was in the hold with it right now.
As Steven passed the mainmast, actually dragging a hand over its rough surface, the creature dropped, but missed his head. The spider-beetle grasped the material of his cloak and started climbing.
Steven felt more of the hold blur together, but the barrels, the boxes and the firewood remained in focus. ‘This isn’t right,’ he murmured. ‘Something’s different; something’s wrong.’ He thought about shouting for the others. Between them, there were plenty of eyes for watching and especially feet for stomping… but he didn’t. He recalled the wrinkle – the ripple on a mill pond – that had moved down here. It had actually shifted his perspective, like light through a turning prism, and there had been nothing Steven could do about it. Whatever was down here was powerful.
The spider-beetle climbed up Steven’s cloak and over the hillock of the hood and slipped into the space between the coarse fabric and the curiously smooth, unnatural texture of the coat beneath it. The magician’s neck, and especially his ears, were close now.
The barrels blurred, then the boxes and Steven turned on his heel. ‘I was right; it’s in the firewood,’ he said aloud. The glowing orbs floated silently forward to hover over the stack of logs and the tangle of dry branches used for kindling, but a step towards them and even they began to melt. Steven looked at the floor, the mast, the bulkheads, the forward stairs, all of it; everything was blurring into the backdrop. He looked down at the deck beneath his boots… everything – except himself.
He barely had time to shout before the creature struck, biting him on his neck and then scurrying for his left ear. ‘Fuck!’ he screamed, ‘it’s already on me – fuck-!’
When the spider-beetle bit him, Steven’s fireballs flared out and the hold was plunged into darkness.
Gilmour was on the quarterdeck with Captain Ford when they heard Steven shout from below. Gilmour dived towards the main hatch; the captain hesitated just long enough to shout at Marrin, ‘Take the helm; hold her steady!’ Then, drawing the knife he used to fillet fish, he followed Gilmour into the darkness.
*
Steven swatted at the spider-beetle and missed. The insect, almost supernaturally fast and still on the attack, bit him again, this time on the back of his hand. The wound was fiery-hot, like a snakebite, a deep puncture flooded with venom. As a reflex, he threw his hands up, slapping at his neck. He shouted for Gilmour then groaned; his vision was blurring for real now, the mainmast shifting and splitting itself twice and then three times as the poison worked its way through his bloodstream. The deck canted to port, too far – That can’t be a wave; I’m losing it. I’m losing it! – dumping Steven in a heap. Before landing on his shoulder, he made one last flailing attempt to brush the determined insect off his neck. But he didn’t find it tucked inside his hood, where it was waiting for him to lose consciousness. When he fell, the spider-beetle emerged and skittered across the Gore-tex collar of Howard’s old ski jacket. It paused just long enough to send a primitive message to its companion. Then it started for Steven’s ear.
Gilmour leaped down the stairs, slamming into the bulkhead as he heard Steven shout and then fall. Crying out a spell, he cast a handful of brilliant fire orbs into the darkness. Captain Ford slowed to keep from running blind into one of the braces; he blinked to acclimatise his vision, then cursed when he ran into Gilmour at the end of the corridor.
‘Rutting horsecocks,’ he shouted, ‘I do wish you would give a bit of warning before you just ignite all the fires of-’
Gilmour wasn’t listening. ‘No, no, no,’ he muttered, ‘this didn’t happen. This did not happen!’ He shouted something Ford couldn’t understand and a howling blast of wind tore through the main hold, rammed the starboard bulkhead and threatened to roll the Morning Star to the scuppers.
‘What in all Eldarn is-?’ the captain began.
‘There!’ Gilmour cried, ‘do you see it? There, against the wall!’
‘What am I looking for?’ He held his fillet-knife ready to slash at anything that might have sneaked on board or stowed away in his cargo hold.
‘Against the wall. Go! It’s stunned. Kill it, Captain – but don’t get bitten!’ Gilmour knelt beside Steven, mumbling furiously. He looked disconcertingly like a father arriving a moment too late to save his son.
Ford noticed Steven for the first time, but, still blinking, turned his attention back to the starboard bulkhead. ‘What am I-?’
Then he saw it: a tiny long-legged beetle, or maybe a mutant spider, black, with some kind of coloured markings along its chitinous back. ‘That?’ Ford started towards it, saying, ‘This little thing? I was expecting another of those Fold monsters that killed Sera and Tubbs. I get worse than this outside my house.’
Gilmour looked up long enough to say, ‘Rutting whores, Doren, be careful! Crush it quickly, before it recovers or gets away.’
‘All right, all right, I’ll step on the bug – but I don’t think this thing could have knocked Steven so-’
Finding its legs, the tan-bak’s hunter sprang from the dusty floor to grip a seam in Captain Ford’s tunic, just beneath his neck.
‘Motherless dryhumping-!’ He danced like a man on fire, swatting and slapping at himself, tearing at his cloak, whining something incoherent. The spider-beetle lost its grip and, scurrying like spilled quicksilver, it dashed for the pile of firewood, but this time, Captain Ford was too quick and pounced on the nefarious intruder, stamping on it again and again until the bug looked like a bit of spilled tar.
‘Good,’ Gilmour said quietly. ‘You got it.’
Sweating and shaking now, he knelt for a moment, his head in his hands, then tried to stand up. His hands were trembling as adrenalin rushed through his system; he couldn’t stay still. ‘What was that?’ he asked.
Gilmour ignored him and concentrated on his fallen comrade. ‘Come on Steven,’ he begged, rubbing his hands, which glowed a soft red in the harsh glare of the false Larion suns. ‘Come on, my boy.’