A Triumph of Souls (10 page)

“Have you a cauldron?” Ehomba asked her. “Perhaps for rendering out seal blubber?”

“This is not a fishing boat. Cook will use her largest kettle
to prepare the brew.” Stanager peered past him, to where the Kraken continued to hover like a mariner’s worst nightmare hard
by the port bow of the
Grömsketter
. “It will have to be big enough.”

As matters developed, the iron kettle was more than sufficient to hold the multiple gallons of dark, aromatic liquid. After
the sugar was added and stirred in and when it had cooled to a temperature Ehomba thought appropriate, it was presented with
some ceremony to the waiting cephalopod.

A tentacle powerful enough to rip a ship’s mainmast right out of its footing reached over the railing. The prehensile tip
hooked beneath the kettle’s sturdy handle. Without spilling a drop, the Kraken lifted the heavy iron over the side. Ehomba’s
companions rushed to the railing, expecting to see the contents of the kettle vanish down that clacking beak in a single prodigious
swallow. Instead, the monster tipped the kettle ever so slightly forward, and sipped. A vast, invertebrate sigh rose from
within, and the Kraken seemed to slip a little lower into the sea. As it drank, other tentacles dipped and waved.

“What’s it saying, bruther?” An enchanted Simna looked on as his friend strove to communicate with the many-armed visitant.

“It is wondering why it is drinking alone, and why we do not join it.”

Stanager replied absently. “It was our entire supply of coffee that went into that kettle.”

“Tea will do,” Ehomba assured her. “I could do with a cup myself. This has been thirsty work.”

“Hoy, and I’ll have a cup as well, Captain!” Simna grinned broadly.

“Just remember that I am the master here,” she growled back at him, “and not some serving wench put aboard for your amusement.”
Muttering to herself, she went once again to confer with the cook.

So it was that Etjole Ehomba and Simna ibn Sind came to sit on the railing near the bow of the graceful sailing vessel, their
sandaled feet braced against the rigging, delicately sipping tea while the herdsman conversed on matters of wind and weather,
tide and current, the nature and flavor of various seafoods, and the vagaries of men who set forth to travel upon the surface
of the sea, with as intimidating and alien a beast as ever plied the deep green waters.

In the course of their conversation the Kraken’s skin would undergo dramatic shifts not only in color but of pattern. Merely
by willing it so, it could generate the most captivating designs and schematics utilizing its own body as a canvas. By the
time it was reproducing intensely colorful herringbones and checkerboards, the crew had abandoned its initial fear in favor
of spontaneous bursts of applause.

“Just how,” Stanager asked Ehomba as she stood nearby sipping her own tea, “does the Kraken develop a taste for something
as foreign to the ocean as coffee?”

Putting the reasonable question to the multiple-limbed sea beast, the herdsman received an immediate and unequivocal answer.
“It was once dozing on the surface at night when it collided with a merchant ship cruising down the eastern coast that now
lies far behind us. Furious and alarmed, it reacted instinctively, and attacked. The merchantman was slow but well laid up,
and fully loaded from a trading expedition to the eastern reaches of the Aboqua.
Included among its cargo were several tons of coffee. The smell, I am told, was quite powerful.

“Aboard the merchantman was another like myself who speaks the tentacle-claw-finger language of the sea. Attempting to convince
their enormous assailant to grant them their lives and allow them to continue on their way, they plied it with every manner
of goods on board. Some the Kraken accepted, like a pair of live bullocks. Others it rejected. None carried the weight of
persuasion until it tasted the coffee one crewman brought on deck for the agitated Captain. It also ate the crewman, but apparently
humans go well with coffee, and so the overall effect was not significantly diminished.” Ehomba drained the last of his tea.

“It held the merchantman in its grasp and its galley busily brewing until there was no more coffee to be had from its stores
and cargo. Only then, with both its taste and anger assuaged, did it allow the ship to depart. Ever since, whenever a vessel
has sailed near, it has risen from the depths in hopes of encountering that dark brown liquid again. Until now, it was always
disappointed.”

Stanager nodded understandingly. “In every country that I know of, tea and wine are far more common libations than coffee.
It is a luxury.” She made a face. “One that will now be denied to us for the duration of our journey across the Semordria.”

“Better to complete that journey with thirst unslaked than perish with full cup in hand,” the herdsman admonished her sagely.

“I agree, but I know of drinkers of this beverage who would not. To them it is not a refreshment, but an obsession.” Looking
past him, she watched the monster gingerly drain the last drops from the iron kettle. “Who would
have thought to count the Kraken among their number. I hope,” she added at a sudden afterthought, “that having quenched its
fancy it will not now request someone to munch upon. I am fond of every member of my crew, and would not willingly give the
least of them over to such a fate.”

“The Kraken was angry with the ship that ran into it.” Ehomba did his best to reassure her. “It is not angry at us.” Long,
supple fingers moved rapidly. “On the contrary, it is delighted to have received the best coffee it has ever tasted.”

As if to underscore the herdsman’s observations, a massive tentacle reached back over the railing to place the empty kettle
conscientiously on the deck. Sending a surge against the side of the ship, the Kraken slowly moved away as its tentacles wove
a complex pattern in the air. A pattern only one man aboard the
Grömsketter
could unravel.

“We are free to go, with thanks and in friendship.”

Nodding tersely, Stanager turned and shouted orders. Shorn of their many-armed source of wonder and entertainment, sailors
snapped out of their phantasmagoric reverie and back to work. Sails were made ready, lines drawn taut.

“Several days we lost because of the winds you freed from the old fisherman’s bottle, and several more from making repairs
and waiting down in the valley in the sea.” Achieving only partial success, she tried to keep the irritation and impatience
out of her voice as she spoke to her tall passenger. “If the winds are favorable we might make some of it up. If not, the
lost time will see certain of our stores sorely thinned.”

“Maybe there is a way to regain a little of the time we
have lost.” Turning back to the rail, Ehomba wagged his fingers energetically at the drifting Kraken. Simna paid little heed,
certain that his friend was bidding their exotic erstwhile drinking companion good-bye. In point of fact, the herdsman had
something different in mind.

Strikingly different.

Returning to the ship, the immense cephalopod promptly wrapped all ten of its tentacles one after the other around the vessel’s
sturdy sides. Startled seamen were shaken loose from the lower rigging or knocked off their feet by the repeated impacts.
With its arrow-like tail pointing westward and its beak hard up against the prow of the ship, the Kraken held her in an unbreakable
titan’s grasp.

A gasping Stanager had instantly stopped handing out orders and directives to stumble back to Ehomba’s side.

“What’s going on? What went wrong?”

“Wrong?” Utterly unperturbed, Ehomba was as calm as the heavens. “Nothing has gone wrong, Captain.” He gestured at the mammoth-eyed
beast that even as they spoke continued to tighten its grip on the ship. “You expressed a desire to recover some of our lost
travel time. I have coaxed our new friend into assisting us in this enterprise. See?” He gestured forward.

Seeing that he was trying to point out something beyond the bow, Stanager moved warily forward and looked down. At the base
of the Kraken’s mantle, a pale yellow tube had emerged. The translucent organ was pulsing slightly, as if readying itself
to perform some unknown function. Having eaten many a squid, Stanager Rose was more than familiar with the organ, but not
with its function. This was about to
be made clear to her and to the rest of the
Grömsketter’s
crew.

“I suggest you grab something and hold on to it.” Looking past her, Ehomba repeated the warning even as he took a firm grip
on a nearby stay. “Everyone hold on tight!” Noticing the stocky helmswoman still standing at her post far back on the helm
deck, he added as loudly as he could, “You too, Priget!”

“Just a minute.” Stanager put a restraining hand on his arm. “If Priget steps down, who’s to steer the ship?”

The herdsman nodded once more at the bulbous bulk that now blocked much of the view forward. “I have already given our friend
a heading. You see, Captain, I have been watching you these past many days, and have learned much. It is my nature to be curious
about everything, including the operation and navigation of a vessel like this.” Looking down, he saw the cylindrical yellow
organ contract slightly. “Hang on. I am going to.” So saying, he turned away from her and made sure his fingers were wrapped
tightly around the stays.

“Why?” she snapped. “What’s going to hap—”

Impelled forward by the stream of water ejected by the Kraken from its rearward-facing siphon, the great sea beast shot westward
across the surface of the sea. Held firm in its tentacular grasp, the
Grömsketter
went with it. Several sailors who had failed to fully heed Ehomba’s warning were nearly left behind as the deck was all but
yanked out from under them. The term “jet propulsion” was one that was as yet unknown to Stanager Rose and her crew, even
as it applied to squid of all sizes and species, but the practical effects of the process were abundantly evident in their
astoundingly swift progress across the water.

Her bow lifted largely clear of the surface, ship and squid shot across the sea at a velocity no sailing craft, however well
crewed and captained, could ever hope to match. Once she was convinced of the stability of the arrangement, Stanager Rose
ordered all sails reefed and pennants and flags broken out and hauled aloft, determined to show the Kraken that it was not
the only one that could alter the color and design of its appearance.

How much lost time this astonishing tandem journey recovered Stanager was not prepared to say, though it was evident from
her expression when the Kraken, tiring of the game, finally let them go, that it was significant. Flashing a kaleidoscope
of colors and patterns at them as it sank beneath the swells, the sea’s most intimidating monster disappeared back into the
depths from which the king of crabs had originally called it forth.

The lesson of the extraordinary encounter was not lost on the members of the
Grömsketter
’s crew. To wit: Never wag an unknowing finger at a squid, and when crossing those stretches of ocean that are endlessly wide
and eternally deep, always carry a sufficiency of coffee.

P
eople invariably fight with their neighbors. How often and how seriously is just a matter of degree. It did not start out
that way in the Tilo Islands. Originally, it is said, in the days when settlers first arrived, necessity compelled everyone
to cooperate. Survival took precedence over the usual petty human squabbles and disputes. Imposing predators lived on several
of the islands, notably Greater Tilo and Hookk. Dealing with them was a matter of concern for the entire community.

Eventually, farms spread across all the islands, of which there were six that boasted cultivatable land. Towns were raised,
and fishermen set forth in small boats to net the silversides that gathered in substantial numbers in the shallows. A few
hearty folk even settled the rock-strewn smaller islets. They could not farm there, but individual gardens were made possible
by soil patiently carried boatload by boatload from Greater Tilo, Hookk, and Gyre. And there were always the eggs of nesting
seabirds to collect and sell in season.

The settlers of the Tilos prospered. So isolated were the
islands that they were never threatened by seafaring raiders. The climate was congenial, with only occasional severe winters
and drenching summers. No one much minded, as long as the fields continued to yield significant crops. With the use of guano
hauled from the seabird rookeries, the fertility of the land was not only maintained but enhanced. There was even a modest
deposit of dragonet guano, which as any farmer knows makes by far the best fertilizer due to the eclectic nature of dragon
diet.

How and when the disputes began no one can say. History being a succession of individual memories clouded by lies and personal
agendas, it was impossible to ascribe blame. Some insist it all started when a rogue from Greater Tilo stole away the love
of a Gyre man’s wife. Others believe it had something to do with cheating involving a load of potatoes from Basweath, potatoes
being the staple food crop and therefore a matter of some gravity among the Tiloeans. Still others insisted the arguments
began when a group of villagers on Middle Tilo took to calling an old woman by the name of Granni Scork a witch.

Disagreements soon gave way to fighting. Shifting alliances between islands and even between individual villages were made
and broken. Fights occasionally escalated into full-blown battles. Crops were carried off or destroyed, fishing nets stolen
or shredded, young women treated with less than the respect that had formerly been accorded to them. Given the vagaries of
weather that seasonally assaulted the islands, these clashes drew much-needed muscle and energy away from the business of
growing and gathering food, repairing and building homes and shops, and generally maintaining the seemly level of civilization
that the Tiloeans had hitherto enjoyed.