I stepped back, then dropped to a knee as I released Adrenaline Surge, and the pain of my wounds slammed into me. My arms and legs burned from the darts still embedded in them—darts that I didn’t want to pull out since that might tear the wounds open wider. Pain throbbed in my chest where the commander’s weapon had gotten through my armor, and a similar agony pulsed in my left side where his sword had stabbed me without my realizing. I took a deep breath and coughed—the wound in my chest had gotten a lung, and while I didn’t think I was bleeding internally yet, I probably would once I pulled the dart out. I was lucky to be alive, really, and there was no guarantee that I still would be in a day without some sort of healing.
I forced myself to stand and turned back, looking at the battlefield. The fight was over. The neat ranks of soldiers lay in twisted lines, their bodies torn and battered. Above me, the Oikie letharvis lay still and unmoving, apparently unconscious from the rise and fall of her chest. Four of the hunters stood at the base of the gangplank, while Aeld knelt over the two who’d fallen to the enemy wizard, both twisted in positions of death on the frozen stones.
I turned back, ignoring the others, and limped toward the fallen enemy wizard, kneeling slowly and painfully beside her. She was the only survivor of the attack, and hopefully she could explain what the Oikies had been doing. Of course, she was also probably the most dangerous enemy on the beach, and leaving her alive might not be a great idea. She’d killed two Menskies already; even bound, she might be able to kill another. I drew my knife, preparing to slit her throat before she could awaken.
“Actually, that might not be necessary, John,” Sara interrupted me quietly.
“What? What do you mean, Sara?”
“Remember the circle that Aeld used to keep his magic signature hidden? I saw how he did that, and I think I can replicate it—or show you how to, more accurately.”
“Okay, but how will that matter? I’m not sure how letting her hide her spellcasting is a good idea.”
“A barrier like that has to go both ways, John. If it doesn’t let magic out, it also doesn’t let it in.”
“Then how did Aeld cast that spell?”
“You’ve seen how much power that staff of his holds. I’m pretty sure he tapped it for the energy he needed. Plus, I think he can draw on the power of his spirits for energy if he has to.”
“Then won’t she just do the same?” I asked, unconvinced.
“I don’t think so. Try using See Spirits on her, John, and you’ll understand.”
I hesitated for only a moment before activating the ability and examining the woman. Spirits shrouded her thickly, swirling in different colors and patterns, just as I’d expected. What surprised me was that none of the spirits actually seemed to touch her flesh. They whirled about her coat, her shoes, and her gloves; clusters of them burned brightly beneath her jacket. Not a single one swam through her body the way they did with Aeld.
“Wait, what’s going on?” I asked in confusion. “Even the hunters have spirits inside of them. Why doesn’t she?”
“I don’t know, John—at least, not yet. I can say, though, that if you strip away anything she’s got that’s spirit-infused and bind her inside a circle like the one Aeld used, though, you should stop her from using any magic at all.” I almost felt her grimace. “Of course, I could be wrong, and she could have a totally different way to store power that I can’t sense, as well. It’s a gamble, I’m afraid.”
I paused for a couple seconds, considering my choices. I needed to find out what the Oikies were doing here—I couldn’t imagine that they just happened to appear in the same place I had in this world, which meant this was all probably related to the reason I was here—and interrogating the woman might be my best bet. At the same time, keeping her alive could be dangerous, even deadly. Plus, I wasn’t even sure that the others would go along with it. They seemed determined to slaughter all the Oikies, no matter what, and I didn’t think they’d be happy with my keeping one alive.
I sighed and slipped my knife back into my sheath, then grabbed the woman by the collar of her jacket and began to drag her down the gangplank. I was too injured to carry her, and honestly, I didn’t want her coming to behind my back. The fact that she was still out was telling; being knocked unconscious rarely lasted more than a couple minutes unless there was severe damage involved, so I assumed her lack of awareness was a magical thing. I didn’t really want to risk it, though, and pulling her down the slick planks was simple enough.
I deposited the woman on the stones at the base of the gangway, where Bregg waited for me, his entire body radiating displeasure. His eyes were hard
“That was poorly done, Hemskal,” he said coldly.
“Agreed,” I sighed. He was right; charging the commander had just been stupid. It wasn’t like he could escape; my Sailor profession assured me that it was almost impossible for one person to sail a ship like the one behind me. The ship had rifles like his mounted to the rails, and I assumed that was what he was trying to go for; if his soldiers had reached those, they might have driven us back, but we could have prevented that simply by keeping the battle line tied up. I’d have done better to just hold the flank and keep them engaged to let Bregg or one of the others in the center reach the gangplank and cut off any chance of retreat. I frowned. “In fact, I’m not sure why I even did it.”
“It’s something we’ll discuss another time—at least, assuming you decide to keep walking our path with us. I’ll make sure of that.” He looked down at the unconscious woman. “And why is this thing still breathing?”
“I thought it might be worth interrogating her,” I shrugged.
“Do you speak their language, then?” he asked suspiciously.
“No,” I lied with a shake of my head. “But I thought that Aeld might have a way of understanding her.”
“You should kill it. If it awakes, it could be dangerous.” He reached down and placed a hand on his knife. “And if you don’t have the stomach for it, I can do it for you.”
I smiled thinly. “I can do whatever’s necessary, Bregg. Killing her, though—that’s not necessary yet, since I think I can render her relatively harmless.” I knelt down painfully and began to pull off the woman’s gloves and coat, tossing them to the side as I did.
“You’re going to make your wounds worse,” he growled at me. “You should sit and rest until the letharvis can heal you. The Oikithikiim darts have to be removed carefully, or they’ll do more damage going in than coming out.”
“I’m fine for this.” I coughed and winced as the dart in my chest shifted slightly. “At least, I think I am.” I continued to undress the woman, slipping off her four boots. Her pants were harder; they’d obviously been made to accommodate a quadruped, and trying to get them off her while she was out just pushed my body a little too hard. At last, I pulled out my knife and cut them away, followed by the thick, heavy shirt she wore beneath her coat. A pouch strapped beneath her armpit blazed in my sight, and I cut that free, too, opening it to see a handful of gemlike spheres about a half-inch across in them, each pulsing with the power of a spirit within. I tossed that aside as well and examined the woman carefully; as far as I could tell, nothing else she wore radiated magical energy, which was good, since it looked like all that was left was a fitted undershirt that seemed to act like a bra and a thin pair of underwear that covered what little modesty she had.
“What are you doing, Freyd?” I glanced over my shoulder at Aeld’s voice, which held a mingling of curiosity and revulsion in it.
“I’m trying to make it so she can’t hurt anyone when she wakes up,” I grunted, grabbing her shirt and cutting strips out of it.
“You could do that by simply killing the thing,” Bregg grunted, but I ignored the hunter and began binding the woman’s feet and hands.
“Why are you bothering?” Aeld asked.
“Because she might know what’s going on here.” I yanked the last binding tight, grunting in pain as I did so.
“It would be kinder to kill it,” Bregg muttered. “It’ll freeze to death in minutes dressed like that.”
“That—is a good point,” I nodded, looking around and rising slowly. “I can put her in one of the tents for the moment—at least, I can if you heal me a bit, Aeld.”
“Forgive me, Freyd, but I can’t heal all your wounds,” the shaman replied with what sounded like genuine regret. “Many of the valskab are wounded, and the battle with the ojain took a lot of my strength. I can remove the darts without damage, though, and close the hole in your lung. The rest will have to heal on their own.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been wounded, Aeld,” I replied just as tiredly as he sounded. “I’ll be fine if you can keep me from bleeding to death.”
“That, I can do.” He reached out and touched me, and I activated See Magic as warmth flowed from his hand into my body. I watched the steel-gray tendrils of power flow down into the wound in my chest. I couldn’t see what they did, but I hissed as pain lanced through the wound there. I forced myself to stay still as something shifted inside me, feeling like a sharp-legged spider crawling through my wound and stabbing my flesh with each step. I coughed uncontrollably as whatever was happening aggravated my wound. The discomfort continued for several seconds before something poked out of the hole in my armor. I watched with mingled disgust and amazement as a bloodstained hunk of jagged iron pulled itself from the wound using spindly threads of metal like the legs of a bug. The metal tumbled from the wound and clinked on the stones, suddenly inert. I continued coughing until more warmth flowed into the hole in my chest, easing the discomfort there. Slender, pale-yellow filaments reached into my chest, and I took a deep breath as the throbbing pain eased into a dull ache.
“That’s all I can do for now,” Aeld sighed, dropping his hand.
“That’s enough to keep my alive,” I grinned. “Everything else will heal.” I bent down and grabbed the bound woman by the mass of light brown hair atop her head, feeling oddly caveman-like as I did. My other wounds still burned, but they weren’t crippling or life-threatening, and I ignored them as I dragged the woman to the nearest tent and pulled her inside.
A wave of warmth and soft light washed over me as I entered the tent. To my surprise, the thin fabric held out the screaming wind and the bitter cold extremely well. I would have thought that the temperature within would be just a few degrees above that outside without a fire or stove of some kind, but it was actually warm enough that it felt slightly uncomfortable. Several spots in the ceiling glowed softly, providing just enough illumination for me to see clearly. Whoever built this tent, I decided, had done a damn good job.
“The tent is spirit-infused, just like the ojain’s clothing, John,” Sara explained, appearing before me now that we were essentially alone. “It provides the light, and it’s probably keeping the cold out magically. I’d guess her clothes do the same. The energy signatures are very similar.”
I frowned. “Is that going to be a problem, Sara? Will she be able to tap that power once she wakes up?”
“I don’t think so, but even so, you can just put the circle inside here and block her from using it. There’s plenty of room.”
I looked around and realized that she was right. It looked like the Oikies had been sleeping in bunk beds that lined the walls of the large tent, leaving plenty of space in the center to pile equipment, clothing, and supplies. It only took me a minute to clear an area around one of the poles holding up the middle of the tent. I seated the woman against it and bound her hands to it, then secured her there with a looped strip of fabric around her throat. When she awoke, she’d probably try to escape, but I doubted she’d struggle too much once she realized that doing so would quickly cut off her ability to breathe.
“Okay, Sara, so how do I do this circle thing?” I asked.
“It’s pretty simple, John,” she replied, gesturing at the ground. A glowing circle about eight feet across appeared, large enough to fully enclose the ojain without any part of her being able to touch it. “All you have to do is etch a circle in the ground while channeling power away from it.”
“Away from it? Not into it?”
“No. What you’re doing is creating a gap in the energy field, more or less. Think of it like a void that insulates anyone within from the external energy field.” As she spoke, the world around me suddenly lit up with the hazy colors of my See Spirits ability.
“You see, John, everything in this world is tied to the spirits,” she continued. “The ground beneath you; the air inside the tent; the light that you’re seeing. All of it touches and is touched by the energy field that is the world of spirits.”
She gestured, and the circle she’d formed on the ground slowly darkened to pure black. “What you’re doing is creating a place where that energy doesn’t exist—or is greatly weakened, at least. That way, if someone inside it tries to gather power, they can only reach as far as that gap.”
“Would this work as a shield, Sara?” I asked curiously. “Could I put myself inside and keep anyone outside from affecting me with magic?”
“Yes, but only in a limited fashion. What you’re creating is an imbalance in the energy field, and it will correct itself over time by drawing power in to replace what was taken. If someone from outside sends power to it, it’ll hasten that correction and collapse it pretty quickly. It might absorb a few spiritual attacks, but nothing more.”
I filed that knowledge away, then pulled out my belt knife. “Okay, show me what to do.”
“It’s very simple, John. You’ll need to etch the circle in the ground, but as you do, just imagine drawing power through the blade into yourself.”
“Imagine? Sara, I thought we weren’t doing this whole ‘visualizing magic’ thing in this world.”
“That’s for casting spells, John,” she laughed. “This is a lot simpler. It’s really no different than the circles that you made before to deal with spirits; it’s just a lot stronger, is all.”
In the end, creating the circle wasn’t difficult at all. I drew the circle with the tip of my spear, keeping the image of drawing in power firmly in my thoughts as I did. I could feel the energy flowing into the shaft as I slowly traced the shape on the ground, and I could sense the still, dead void in the air left behind by the weapon’s passage. That energy flowed into me and sank down into my depths, merging with the churning power already there. It took me a minute or so to complete the figure, and I knew when I’d done it. As the circle snapped into place, a weird sense of stillness filled the space before me, a silence I could feel but not hear. It was a little unsettling, and I was actually glad to leave the tent and return to the biting wind and icy cold.
I limped back outside to find that Bregg had the other hunters moving among the rest of the tents, pulling everything out of them and tossing it all into a large pile. As I watched, one of the hunters turned my way and walked over to me.
“You’re still injured, Freyd,” the man said in a soft voice, gesturing at me. “We need to remove those darts, or you’ll end up too injured to leave this beach.”
“I take it Aeld isn’t able to do it, then?” I asked with a sigh.
“The letharvis has done all he will.” The hunter pulled out a slim skinning knife. “The rest, I’m afraid, has to be done the hard way.” He took a strip of thick, soft leather from his pouch and handed it to me. “Sit down and bite down on this. This is going to hurt.”
I stuffed the soft leather into my mouth, but as his knife moved toward the wound in my shoulder, Sara spoke silently.
“Adrenaline Surge is off cooldown, John. It might make this a lot less unpleasant.”
“Good idea,” I replied, activating the ability and almost sighing as the rush of adrenaline smothered the pain of my wounds. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she laughed, suddenly appearing before me as I felt the knife dig into my arm. “Although it might not last the entire time. You’ve got six pieces of metal stuck in you, after all.”
“Six? I didn’t even notice.” I sighed internally. “Sara, do you have any idea what’s going on? I have no clue why I charged that commander.”
“Kateen,” she corrected. “It’s the Oikithikiim word for commander, and I think it’s his official title from what I overheard during the battle.” Her face turned grave as she spoke. “And yes, John. I think it’s the spirit you bonded.”
“The spirit?” As soon as she said that, though, I realized that it made complete sense. “It’s a Hunt Spirit. A sort of spiritual predator. That would explain all the strange thoughts about defending my territory and that death is what the soldiers deserved.”
“Exactly. Somehow, I think it’s affecting your mental state, making you behave more like it.”
“Okay, so how do we fix it?”
“My suggestion?” She shrugged. “Talk to Aeld. He’s bonded several spirits, and it doesn’t seem like they’re affecting him. That means he has to know how to control them.”
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“You think he’ll actually explain?” I laughed silently. “I’m not part of his valskab, after all.”
“I think Bregg will convince him, personally. I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant by saying he was sure that you’d talk about it another time. He knows that having you affected by the spirit is probably dangerous to everyone.”
“Good point.” I looked up at the boat, where the smoke from the fallen letharvis still rose. “Did you by any chance see how Aeld knocked out that letharvis? It would be good to know about how long she’ll stay out.”
“Ojain, not letharvis,” she corrected.
“Is there an actual difference?”
“There seems to be. Letharvis means something like ‘caller of spirits’. Ojain is closer to ‘forger of spirits.’”
“Meaning?”
“Well, obviously, it means that while one calls spirits, the other forges them, John. It seemed pretty clear to me.”
I snorted internally. “Funny.”
“Sorry. Actually, I have a feeling the difference is fundamental and is tied to the fact that the ojain didn’t have any spirits attached directly to her.”
“Does that really matter all that much?”
“It might.” She appeared before me again, her expression serious. “Especially since that difference seems to affect all Menskallin and Oikithikiim—at least, all the ones I’ve seen.”
I frowned. “I didn’t really look that closely at the soldiers. They were like that ojain lady?”
“Yes, they were. They had spirits bound to their clothing and weapons, but none within them. On the other hand, every Menskallin hunter has at least one spirit bound to them, but Aeld’s staff is the only item they possess that radiates spiritual energy.”
“So, they use magic in two different ways? The way that some people in Soluminos had more affinity for lunar raju and others for solar?”
“Possibly. It could also be that because they’re two different species that obviously arose on two completely separate evolutionary paths, they could be fundamentally ties to the magic of this world in a different way. It might be that a Menskallin can’t do Oikithikiim magic, and vice-versa. Aeld might know—or the ojain, when you question her.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think Aeld will talk, and I doubt the ojain and I are going to have a polite, calm conversation.”
“Well, yes, there’s that, but I wanted to put the thought out there.”
I bit down as Adrenaline Surge faded, and the pain of the knife currently digging in my forearm brought the internal conversation to a close. I focused on my breathing as the hunter cut out the serrated bits of metal, rinsed the wounds out, then stitched them close. When he finished, I was dizzy and light-headed, both from the pain and blood loss. The man gave me some water to drink, and I lay back, letting my body recover. I knew that Sara would speed up the healing process, but at the moment, my entire body hurt like hell, and part of me just wanted to pass out for a day or so.
That wasn’t going to be an option, though, as I certainly knew. There was still far too much to do. I gave myself a couple minutes to recover, then pushed myself tiredly to my feet and began walking toward the gangplank. As I did, though, Bregg and Aeld moved to intercept me.
“Where are you going?” Bregg asked curtly.
“Up there,” I gestured toward the ship. “I want to take a look around.”
“No,” the old hunter shook his head. “We’re about to burn it—and all the rest of this.” He pointed to the pile of supplies and equipment they’d gathered.
“Why?” I asked tiredly. “I’ll bet some of it’s useful. That tent is pretty warm inside, for example.”
“That tent is an abomination, Hemskal—as is everything touched by the Oikitihikiim!” Bregg’s voice came out as a growl. “It’s all tainted, and it has to be destroyed!”
“He’s right, Freyd,” Aeld agreed. “The arts of the Oikithikiim are an affront to the spirits, and they have to be destroyed.”
“Why?” I asked bluntly.
“Because they do,” Bregg snapped.
“There is a reason, Freyd,” Aeld assured me. “However, it’s not something that’s discussed outside the valskab, I’m afraid. Suffice it to say that the Oikithikiim pervert the natural order with their practices, and that the only way to correct it is to destroy their works.”
I stopped myself from questioning them further. What they said smacked vaguely of religion of some sort, and I’d long ago learned not to argue about religion. I wasn’t going to change their minds, and it didn’t seem like they were going to give me enough of an explanation to convince me.
“Fine. Burn it after I’ve had a chance to look it over and see if there’s something up there that explains why they’re here in the first place.”
“It’s obvious,” Bregg snorted, gesturing toward the rocky slope behind us. “This is the only decent access from the North Ocean to the High Reaches for days in either direction. They were here to map a path through the mountains, hoping to invade the Haelendi from behind.”
“If that’s true, why weren’t they in the pass?” I looked up at the slope. “I didn’t see any of their tracks up there, did you? I would think that they’d be sending scouting parties up to map out a path, or at least to see what’s nearby.”
I turned and pointed toward the cylindrical tents. “And why weren’t they better prepared to shelter in the mountains? These things are warm, but they’re too large to use up there. And none of them were really dressed for traveling through the snow and mountains. Why were they quiet during the day but active at night? Why didn’t they have a lookout posted at the top of the pass?” I refrained once more from shaking my head. “It doesn’t look like they were planning to head into the mountains to me. It looks more like they were here because this is where they wanted to be, not up in the High Reaches.”
“There’s nothing here that anyone could want, Hemskal,” Bregg snorted. “Nothing but access to the mountains.”
“And a beach that someone could use as a base camp, a place to store supplies and let crews rotate off the ship—assuming this is the only ship they’ve got in the area. There could be five or six of them out there, using this place to resupply as they do whatever it is that they’re really here for.”
Bregg’s face darkened as I spoke, and he opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, Aeld walked up to the pair of us, giving the hunter a sharp look before turning to face me.
“And what do you think that might be, Freyd?” he asked curiously.
“I don’t know. Maybe they really are scouting the area, looking for other landings they can use before heading into the mountains. Maybe they’re looking for something out in the ocean, and this is their base. There’s no way to know.” I pointed up at the ship. “Unless there’s something on board that might explain it, that is, and it doesn’t hurt to go look.”
“You’re asking us to board that—that blasphemy?” Bregg demanded.
“I’m not asking you to do anything, Bregg,” I said with a hint of iron in my voice. “I’m telling you what the smart thing to do is—and what I’m planning to do. It’s up to you if you want to join me or not, but if you don’t, I’ll just go look by myself. I think finding out what they’re doing here is more important than satisfying your need to destroy their things.”
Bregg took a step toward me threateningly, but Aeld stepped between us. “Enough!” he snapped. He looked at me. “Freyd, you speak without understanding. That ship is a work of Henguki, the profane art of the Oikithikiim, and its very existence is an affront to the spirits. It must be destroyed to restore the natural order, not for vengeance or petty anger.” He shifted to look at Bregg. “However, Bregg, his words make sense. The rashi sent us to investigate, not merely to destroy this one camp. The Oikithikiim breed like snaerbigs, and the loss of a few soldiers or a single ship means nothing to them.”
The hunter glared at me for a moment before stepping back and looking at Aeld. “As you wish, Letharvis. I’ll take the others and return to camp.” He turned and stomped away, and I let myself relax. I shouldn’t have provoked the hunter—I was in no shape to tussle with him—but something about his attitdue just set my teeth on edge.
“Come, Freyd,” Aeld said, turning toward the gangplank. “If this must be done, let’s do it quickly.” I wearily and painfully followed him up the plank, stopping by the fallen kateen and kneeling to rifle his pockets. He had a small leather wallet with some papers and a few coins in it, a brass device that looked like a watch with incomprehensible sigils and no hands, and an iron knife strapped to his belt. I took the knife and watch and picked up the man’s fallen rifle, inspecting it carefully.
At first glance, the weapon looked almost like a breech-loading matchlock. It had a curved wooden stock with a metal barrel held in place with copper bands. A small panel in the back of the barrel popped open, obviously meant to load a dart into it. There, though, all resemblance ended. The barrel was bronze, not steel, and I doubted it would weather gunpowder explosions well. It lacked a hammer, pan, or striker of any kind, nor did it have a trigger. Instead, a glass bubble jutted from where a trigger should have been, surrounded by a circular metal guard and glowing faintly white in the growing darkness. The guard was too small for my finger to slide into, which might have been on purpose. It was an Oikie weapon, after all, and making sure that the Menkies couldn’t pick one up and use it against them was only smart. Not that I thought they would after how Bregg and Aeld reacted to what I would call Oikie technology.
I set the weapon down, part of me wishing that I could keep it. I couldn’t use it, but the trigger guard was only copper, and cutting it away wouldn’t be that hard. It would be nice to have a firearm—of sorts—or really, anything more advanced than my spear. I was pretty sure there was no way Aeld would be comfortable with me taking it, though, and Bregg would probably lose his fucking shit if he saw me carrying the rifle.
“Don’t forget the Storage function of your weapon and clothing, John,” Sara reminded me.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.” I had forgotten that she’d added that function to my adaptive items. The weapon didn’t hold much, and that space was still occupied by decks of cards from Puraschim—which I really needed to clear out—but my clothes held a cubic foot or so, and that space was mostly empty. Before I could slip the weapons into it, though, Aeld stopped me.
“Don’t touch that, Freyd!” The shaman’s voice was sharp. “It’s profane, part of the forbidden practice of Henguki. Even its touch is unclean.”
“Is it really dangerous to touch this, Sara?” I asked silently.
“Inherently? No. The weapon’s energy is bound into it, and it’s not leaking out. I can’t see how it could taint or harm anything. It might be dangerous if someone found you with it, though, considering how strongly Bregg and Aeld are reacting.”
I sighed and rose from my crouch. I wanted the weapon, but not badly enough to alienate the entirety of Menskallin society. Besides, it wasn’t like I could use it anywhere were another Menskie could see me. It was a lot of risk for very little gain. I did palm the papers, though, and slipped them into my storage, then followed Aeld onto the ship.
Before I’d entered the Doorverse, the word “ship” conjured up vastly different images for me. I’d been on cruise ships, cargo haulers, and even naval vessels. They were mostly huge constructions of steel, with metal walls, floors, and ceilings—bulkheads, decks, and overheads in ship parlance. They rolled with the waves, to be sure, but they were so large and heavy they didn’t move much unless they were in a big storm, and their passageways were wide enough for two to four people to walk abreast down them. Everything belowdecks was brightly lit, even the cargo and ammo holds, so most of the time, it felt like walking through a factory or hotel, not a ship.
The Oikie vessel was nothing like that. Made entirely of tar-stained wood, the ship stretched about sixty feet from end to end and about twenty across. A simple railing ran the length of the open deck, and the gangway hooked onto that rail, with a set of stairs leading from it to the deck. A single mast sprouted from the deck about two-thirds of the way along the ship, directly in front of a raised and covered rear deck. A similarly raised but uncovered front deck sported two large ballistae, while long rifles like the kateen’s were mounted along the rails of the ship. An open hatch near the front deck displayed a set of stairs that plunged into darkness, while a pair of doors set into the wall beneath the back deck probably led to the kateen’s and ojain’s quarters, a fact that it seemed Aeld had already worked out as I followed him back to that cabin. As I walked, I noticed a faint glow rising from the seaward side of the ship, a glow I assumed was some magical feature of the vessel, but I ignored it for the moment and joined Aeld outside the cabin.
“Let’s go inside,” I told him, pulling open the first door to display a darkened room.
“I’ll remain here, Freyd,” the shaman said a little nervously, looking around. “This entire vessel is unclean.”
“Any way I can borrow that staff to light the cabin up?” I asked tiredly. “I don’t want to stumble around there in the dark.”
“I can help you with that.” The shaman lowered his staff, and a glowing ball of light emerged from it, floating into the room and hovering inside. It wasn’t as bright as a flashlight would be, but it would hopefully be good enough—especially since it seemed clear that it was all I was going to get.
“Thanks,” I sighed, heading into the cabin. I quickly realized that the room belonged to the ship’s captain. It was small, half the width of the ship and fifteen feet deep, but I guessed that compared to the crew’s spaces, it was probably luxurious. A window in the rear wall probably let some light in during the day but did nothing this late, leaving Aeld’s spell as the only illumination. A cot rested against one wall, and a desk stood against the other. The desk was simple, a flat surface with a long drawer set beneath it that would obviously be part of my search. I ignored it for the moment and focused on the map that hung above the desk, a map that I hoped showed the continent I was on.
The continent had a sort of crescent shape with the curve turned southward like a huge frown. The eastern side was thicker and extended farther south, while the western side was smaller and narrower. Mountains covered the northernmost arc of the curve in a relatively narrow band, while a second horizontal range of mountains stretched from ocean to ocean some distance below that range, creating a large plateau that looked cut off from the rest of the continent. No features or terrain decorated the inside of that plateau, which I guessed could just be an open tundra or grassland—although it could also simply be that the Oikies didn’t really know anything about the terrain there. That seemed more likely since the eastern part of the continent was much more detailed, showing several rivers, a series of large lakes in the southeast, and dozens of labels that probably marked cities or towns. A swirling shape hung over the ocean to the northeast of the continent, and arrows and lines running along it likely indicated wind patterns and ocean currents.
“This is amazing, John,” Sara said silently. “I’ll bet that raised plateau is the Haelendi, and the amount of detail suggests that the Oikithikiim inhabit the eastern and central parts of the continent but not the west. I wonder why not.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out eventually, Sara. Somewhere, there’s a history book for you to read, I’m betting.” I hesitated. “Can this help you decipher their writing? I mean, knowing that’s the Haelendi should help, right?”
“Sadly, no. That’s the Menskallin word for it. I have no idea what the Oikithikiim call it, so I can’t really translate it. If you can find me a book or several pages of writing, I can probably do it, though.”
I pulled the map off the wall, removing the metal pins holding it in place, then folded it up and added it to my storage before pulling out the desk drawer and looking through it. The drawer held nothing but papers, and while I supposed they could be what I was looking for, I doubted it. People rarely kept valuable things out in the open like that; at least, humans didn’t, and neither had any of the intelligent species I’d met in the Doorverse, so I assumed being sneaky was a universal trait. The desk might have a false bottom or hidden rear compartment—and I’d check that—but there were some other places I wanted to check first.
The bed was a bust, as I suspected it would be, but the floor was a different story. The deck planking was mostly sound, but one of the planks beneath the bed came up easily, and I reached in and pulled out a leather pack and two books. The pack jingled, and opening it revealed a bunch of coins that all looked the same in the limited light Aeld’s spell gave me. The books were a different matter; opening them revealed pages of sharp, angular script, and I flipped through a few before they flowed and shifted into legible English. I slipped all those into storage, as well, then looked back at the papers on the desk.
As I expected, the papers were nothing exciting. They were mostly navigational logs, numbers and symbols that made no sense me, and I was about to toss them back into the desk when an idea popped into my head.
“Sara, any way you could combine these and that map to work out where this ship has been?”
“Actually, that might be possible, John,” she mused. “You don’t need to take them, though. Just flip through them for me, and I’ll start working on it.” I riffled through the pages, letting her absorb each of them. I paused, then rolled them up. I quickly examined the desk, searching for a false bottom or back and finding nothing. With that done, I stepped back out into the starlight.
“What did you find, Freyd?” Aeld asked as I emerged.
“These,” I said, holding up the papers. “Any chance you can read them?”
“I can’t, no. I can speak their language a fair bit, but I never bothered to learn their writing, sorry. There’s one at the valskab who can, though.”
“Then here, they’re yours.” I hesitated briefly. “I also found a bag of their coins. Are those useful at all?”
“They’re valuable for trade with the Mellungin, yes, but that’s all. No valskab would accept Oikithikiim coins in trade, or even melt them down to reuse. They’re unclean.”
“And is it easy to trade with the Mellungin?”
“Only during the season of Growing Light, at the Great Fair.”
“This is the season of Falling Light, John,” Sara reminded me. “I assume that means the season of Growing Light is a long time away, although I’m still not sure exactly how the Menskallin calendar works.”
I suppressed a sigh; I’d probably end up dumping those coins, then. They didn’t weigh anything in my storage, but they did take up space that I might need. I decided I’d get rid of them whenever I tossed all my rune cards from Puraschim; it sounded like they were all equally useless to me.
The ojain’s room was simpler than the kateen’s, and a search of it revealed nothing more than a few more coins that I ignored, a book that held some odd formulae, and a letter written to someone wherever the ojain came from. Again, I wasn’t supposed to know that, though, so I added the book to my storage—it looked interesting, and Sara thought it might deal with the Oikithikiim version of magic, which meant Aeld would want to burn the damn thing first chance he got—and gave him the note when I back out onto the deck.
The sun had sunk from the sky while we were searching, and the stars sparkled overhead. Aeld was obviously ready to be off the ship—something about it bothered him at a deep level that I didn’t understand, and he was twitchy and uncomfortable when I returned. I could only assume it was one of those religious things Sara mentioned. I wanted to go search for a cargo hold and maybe the crew’s quarters, but I had a feeling that the shaman had done all the searching he was going to, and without his light, there was no point to my continuing into the ship. Besides, if I vanished into the depths of the ship while Aeld returned to shore, Bregg would probably suggest burning it down around me. Realistically, that wasn’t likely, but I could imagine him suggesting that they leave me behind.
Honestly, that might be for the best. I didn’t really want to get embroiled in whatever was going on between the Menskies and the Oikies. I’d done my time fighting wars I didn’t believe in for causes that didn’t matter to me, and I had no desire to do it again. Thanks to the map I’d seen in the captain’s cabin, going my own way was a real possibility. I was pretty sure Sara could use it to guide me to civilization, and with my Hunter and Isyagarl professions, I wouldn’t starve on the way. Hell, with my Sailor profession and Navigation skill, I might be able to sail the ship around the High Reaches myself—although that was really unlikely. I’d been forced to take a side in the conflict, but if I broke away from the hunters, I might be able to undo that choice. After all, I doubted I was here to fight a war, and getting bogged down in one might make it harder for me to do what I actually had to.
Even as I thought it, though, I realized that probably wouldn’t work. I knew that the hunters had a unique way of communicating, and I had no idea what its range or limitations were. For all I knew, Aeld had shared my likeness with his entire valskab, so they’d all recognize me on sight. They might be able to pass that image to other valskabs, so it was within the realm of possibilities that every damn Menskie out there knew who I was. My Sailor profession told me that sailing a ship the size of this one alone would be practically impossible—I couldn’t steer the rudder and adjust the sails at the same time, and adjusting the sails alone would be a mammoth task in any decent wind—but even if I could and sailed it out of Menskie territory, I couldn’t see the Oikies being cool seeing one of their enemies sailing one of their ships into port somewhere.
The fact was, I had no real choice except to follow along with Aeld and his band of not-so-merry men, at least until I understood more about this world. I needed magical training, more practice with my spear, and allies to help me navigate until I figured out what I was supposed to be doing. Aeld and his band offered all that, and I’d be an idiot not to take it.
Sighing, I walked toward the gangplank, looking around almost out of habit to make sure there were no threats nearby. The glow on the other side of the ship was brighter as darkness grew around us, and I felt a vague sense of unease looking at it. I paused, then turned and walked away from the ramp toward the seaward rail. Something about it drew me, and I knew I had to see what that glow was. I stepped to the railing, then stared at the ocean in silence for several seconds before turning and looking back toward the gangplank.
“Aeld!” I called out loudly. “Come here!”
“Freyd? What’s wrong?” I glanced back to see the shaman’s head pop up over the edge, looking at me with a mixture of curiosity and irritation. He was done with the ship, I knew, but this was more important than his irritation or religious unease.
“I think you should see this,” I called back, pointing out at the water. He hesitated, looking toward the shore, then turned back toward me and trudged onto the ship with obvious reluctance. He shuffled over to the rail, then froze, staring at the water.
“By the First Spirits, what is that?” he gasped, his eyes wide and his face shocked.
“I was hoping you’d know,” I replied. “So, that’s not normal, then?”
“No, that’s not normal, Freyd.”
We both stared at the glowing band of ocean that stretched to the right and left as far as we could see. The glow seemed to rise from beneath the water but didn’t illuminate much except what was directly above it. It was brighter to the east, in the direction of the star Flikkur, and its radiance fell away to the west. Its glow shone no brighter than the Northern Lights on Earth, just enough to make it out but not enough to provide any real illumination.
And as I stared at it, my stomach lurched and trembled. Whatever this was, it was part of the imbalance in this world.
“Looks like it’s a good thing I kept that ojain alive after all,” I said grimly, turning away from the sight. “Come on, Aeld. Let’s go see what she has to say about this.”