Hard to port

The twin princes are escorting a precious treasure, but the pirates are cunning. A careful trap lies in wait; will they see through the facade soon enough to avoid it?

Four days out from Carakko, they passed the first floating outpost. Vemway, still paler than usual and with his perfume not quite hiding the faint aroma of bile, peered across the waves at the towering structure. Half-cut timber bulwarks rose high above the water, their lower sides crusted with salt and seaweed, a few barnacles hanging on for dear life. Colourful flags broke the barren expanse of the sky; with the Golden Sun in ascent, clouds were nothing more than a fleeting memory, or wistful nighttime fancy burned off all too quickly by the rising dawn. Even from this distance, the sounds of people laughing, singing, shouting – living – were clearly audible.

Vemway looked back the way they had come, half expecting to still see the oily black fugue still hanging over the horizon. But it had been swallowed by the sea and the sky, and was nothing more than a heavy feeling settling over his heart. A cloud indeed, and one the Golden Sun couldn’t disperse.

“Aw, yeah! Is that a Moor?” Kyrian thundered over to the railing, his sealegs well and truly beneath him, much to his brother’s annoyance.

“Shouldn’t you be guarding the…” Vemway glanced around, but the crew seemed singularly disinterested in the twin princes standing by the bow, staring at the floating Moor city with looks of undisguised longing. Still, it paid to be discrete. A sailor nearby, tarred braid nearly to his knees and muscles gleaming as he staggered towards the stern of the ship carrying a large crate, spared them a brief nod, but that was the most interaction Vemway had received from any of the crew in days.

“You worry too much. Besides, who’d steal the Chains of Sidera?” Pushing a coppery strand of hair behind one ear, Kyrian leaned on the railing and looked longingly at the Moor. The sun glanced off his high cheekbones, but even the gleaming golden light couldn’t hide the shadows on his cheeks and around his eyes. “And where would they go, anyway? Swim?”

Vemway huffed, which turned into a heave halfway through. Bitterness clawed its way up his throat, but nothing came out. He was empty.

He leaned against his brother’s warmth, resting his head against Kyrian’s cheek. “You need to eat something, Ky. And maybe have a nap.”

“Worrywart.” Kyrian gave him a little nudge, his voice carrying a smile that Vemway couldn’t see from his current position. “Besides, the way you’re carrying on, anyone would think you’re eating for two.”

“There’s a few minor issues with that theory.” Still, Vemway managed a weak grin, despite a stomach that was threatening to exit via his mouth or perhaps his nose if he didn’t get something sturdier than a deck below his feet. The azure waters thudded steadily against the sides of the boat, and for a moment if he closed his eyes he could imagine he was listening to the waves lapping against the floating gardens of the Sea Palace. He could nearly smell the flowers; it was summer, so the honey-witch and sapphire sea-glass would be in bloom, filling the air with heady perfume. Syrupy and nearly thick enough to taste. Jari always loved them.

He opened his eyes again, and his face was solemn once more.

“Have you ever been to a Moor?” It was a distraction; Vemway knew the answer, of course. Where one twin went, the other followed, though either would be hard-pressed to say who was leading. It depended on the day, their mood and what they were doing.

“No.” Kyrian rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at Vemway, pushing his brother away and towards the railing. “You know that. Though Lisham always…”

The distant sound of a baby wailing drifted into the silence that suddenly hung between the brothers. Vemway opened his mouth to say something that would make it better, or at least break the silence, but he didn’t know what he could possibly say.

“Sorry,” he managed eventually, but the breeze snatched the word away with sharp, salty claws.

“Just… don’t.” Kyrian hugged himself, one hand rubbing absentmindedly against his upper arm. Ordinarily it was a bad habit that annoyed their father, because it rumpled the fabric, but no-one was going to comment on it today. Apart from anything else, after four days of constant wear the tunic would have given their father an aneurysm and a little bit of nervous rubbing was hardly going to make it noticeably worse.

“The North Wind greets you, my fine sirs.”

Relieved, Vemway turned then leaned a little back as he caught a whiff of the captain’s personal… He’d have called it perfume, hanging heavy around the whip-thin, sharp-eyed man, but perfumes were meant to be pleasant, even if some might overapply to the point of revulsion. It was more of a lingering odour, something like tobacco and stale alcohol and some kind of exotic spice that tickled the nose, but Vemway would never be so crass as to call it that. Odour was such a rude descriptor. He hoped his lean hadn’t been noticeable.

“Ah, yes. Thank you.” He did his best to breathe through his mouth. “Will we be stopping at the Moor?”

The captain’s eyes flickered as he looked at the towering structure festooned with bright fabrics behind the princes.

“It is so refreshing to have such innocents on board,” he smiled, a silver tooth flashing in the sunlight. “No, we will not stop here.”

“It looks like a nice place, though. Don’t we need to… restock or something?” Vemway tried to keep the hope out of his voice. The desire to get off the ship, even if only for a few hours, was nearly a physical pain, nestled just behind his belly button, though he had to admit, that sensation might not just be hope.

“We have enough supplies. And consider, fine sir, a question. If you were perhaps a pirate, or some other ne’er-do-well seeking to capture cargo or people, what would be better – hunting them down across the vast expanse of the open oceans? Or luring them in with false promises?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Vemway could see Kyrian watching the Moor drifting slowly past, the breeze still carrying the sounds of people chattering and laughing. Vemway didn’t recognise the music that was drifting across the waters, but something in the rhythm reminded him of the Pearl Festivals of Carakko. Only distance kept it from familiarity.

“Seems like a lot of effort for a façade,” Kyrian muttered, shooting the captain a challenging scowl. Tiredness gave him a brittle edge, like a knife made of glass. The captain merely shrugged.

“They’re a wily bunch, pirates. So we won’t be stopping here, sirs, and I’m sure you’ll understand why eventually.”

***

The water had taken on an oily sheen, reflecting the searing sunlight in rainbows that gave an odd, shifting appearance to people and objects. Vemway could smell it, and over it or underneath drifted the memory of another acrid, burning scent so thick he could nearly taste the smoke. His throat ached.

A thin, quiet figure moved up to the railing next to him.

“Captain.”

“Sir.”

Vemway stared at the Moor. Eight days out, two with his stomach finally agreeing with him, just in time for it to begin grumbling at the meagre fare, but this place didn’t look like anywhere he wanted to stop, even if they had supplies. And the ‘if’ was growing larger as the Moor did. Every inch of it screamed, words like ‘wretched’ and ‘squalor’ and ‘disrepair’. Poor, he would have thought, and then squashed the thought because that wasn’t the way a prince should think. Poor did not mean less. It did not have to mean dirty or rank or mean, and if it did then he should consider what it said about his governance.

But this Moor was truly the worst of the worst, and the faint smell of pollution that hung over the glistening water was giving him a headache.

“Have you seen Kyrian?” Vemway had been on deck when the call came down from the crow’s nest. Moor sighted. Not that he could bring himself to stomach being belowdecks; the close, warm air and the smell of many bodies pressed together mingling with old food smells and tobacco smoke still made his stomach clench and roil. He’d expected Kyrian to come up above deck to look at the Moor, but his brother hadn’t appeared yet. Probably guarding the Chains.

A vague feeling of guilt settled in his belly, replacing the nausea as seamlessly as a horse moving from a trot to a canter. He should be doing more to help, but he wouldn’t be much use if he was puking his guts out into a bucket, and they couldn’t take the risk of bringing that Chains above deck. How terrible if the ancient relics were tossed overboard by a stray wave that hit the ship wrong. They’d seen a Pyrebird on the horizon yesterday, too. The Sun was only waxing in power the longer they took, and its creatures would be scouring the world for them and their burden. No, there was no sense risking it.

“He’s sleeping belowdecks, sir. Out like a light.”

“Oh.” Kyrian hadn’t been sleeping well, that much had been plain to see on his face for the last week. His eyes were sunken in his skull, and dark shadows that not even the Golden Sun could dispel had settled over his face. Vemway had asked if there was anything he could do to help, but his brother hadn’t answered. He didn’t have to. Vemway was having the same sort of dreams, but at least his were dulled by distance. He’d seen the smoke. Kyrian had seen the fire. “Good. He needs the rest.”

“Indeed.” One of the rowboats made a hollow thumping sound as the waves rocked the ship, and Vemway took a deep breath to settle his still tender stomach. The sour stench of the waters didn’t really help matters. At least he didn’t have anything left to expel; his stomach alternated between unquiet grumbling and the sharp pinching sensation of hunger.

“Will we be stopping at this Moor?” It looked less than appealing, with the rough metal siding stained red and brown with rust. A few heavy iron canons poked long snouts from between wooden fortifications, and a few scorch marks suggested that the Moor had come under attack in the not-too-distant past. Harsh voices, their words muffled by distant and the wind, drifted across the water. Someone was singing a song. Something about the tone suggested that if he could make out the words, Vemway would have blushed. Still, any port in a storm, or so they said.

“Of course.”

Vemway nodded, wishing that they were docking anywhere else. It seemed shallow, he knew it, but everything about this place suggested that visitors were not welcome. At least, not visitors like Vemway and Kyrian. “So this is one of the good ones, then?”

“Indeed. We wouldn’t dream of coming in to port anywhere else, especially not with our current cargo.”

“I’m sure you know best, captain.” Vemway stared at the Moor, searching for some sort of redeeming quality in its ramshackle, slipshod appearance. A few masts stuck out from the waters surrounding the Moor’s anchored base, tilted at various angles. He wondered what flags those drowned ships had flown, and why they’d been scuttled.

“I do.”

The sound of heavy footfalls behind them indicated that one of the crew was approaching. From the weight of them it was probably the second mate, a big man who looked as though someone had built him out of clay or granite and only at the very end remembered to tack skin on the blocky frame.

Beside Vemway, the captain gave the prince a sly smile. “Where else would we get the best price for two noble sops and their magic chain?”

Pain and darkness flowered at the back of Vemway’s head, and unconsciousness reached out to claim him.