A Triumph of Souls (7 page)

“Good day to you, sargassum man.” Ehomba hoped he
was remembering to make the sounds exactly the way his grandfather had instructed him.

In this he must have been successful, because the green-skinned being replied in kind. “Hello, landsman. You are an interesting
color.”

“I am not green, if that is what you mean.” When Ehomba smiled, the sargassum man made a perfect round O with his lipless
mouth. Tongue and gullet were entirely black. “I did not expect to find one of your kind here—but I had hope.”

“‘One’?” Lifting a supple, tubular arm that was fringed with kelp-like protrusions, the humanoid made a sweeping gesture.
“My entire family is here; my wife and three children, and my uncle and his wife and two children, and an elderly cousin.”

Strain his eyes as he might while surveying the surrounding floating weed, Ehomba could see nothing. “They must be far away.”

A burbling noise rose from the depths of the sargassum man’s throat. It reminded the herdsman of the sound a badly clogged
drain might make. “They are right here.” Turning slightly to his left, he pointed. Not off into the distance, but down.

Two sargassum children popped their heads out of the water not an arm’s length from the boat, giggling like gargling eight-year-olds.
They so startled Terious that for the second time he momentarily lost his grip on the oars. Watery laughter trailing behind,
the effervescent pair ducked back beneath the weed mat. Though they were blowing bubbles less than a foot below the surface,
their natural camouflage made them impossible to see even when Ehomba looked directly at them.

“We like this place,” the adult was saying. “It is always calm here. The winds are mild and no landsmen ships with hooks and
nets visit the valley.” His expression, insofar as it was possible to do so, darkened. “No sharks, either. And this weed patch
is thick and healthy and full of good things to eat.”

“What do you find to eat in the weed?” The sun was still high, the languorous afternoon warm, and Ehomba was not above making
casual conversation. Who knew when the chance to do so with another of these people might arise? Stuffed full of questions
as always, he was reluctant to bring up the reason for his coming lest it cut the conversation short.

“The same sort of things a landsman would find in his garden. The weed itself is very tasty, and despite how uniform it appears
to most landsmen, there are actually many different kinds of weed. Each has its own spice and flavor. Living in the weed are
millions of little creatures; shrimp and small fish, and the larger fish that prey upon the smaller. There are comb jellies
and moon jellies in many flavors, seahorses that crunch when you bite into them, and shellfish that have to be sucked out
of their homes and down your throat. Oh, there is plenty to eat.” Pushing a leafy hand down through the dense mat of green
stuff and into the water, he drew forth a juvenile octopus.

“No thank you,” Ehomba told him politely.

“What’s he doing?” The first mate tried to see around Ehomba. “What are you two talking about?”

The herdsman glanced back. “Food.”

“Oh.” Terious was not displeased. He quite liked octopus himself. “What does he say about getting us out of here?”

“I am coming to that.” With a reluctant sigh, Ehomba remembered that he was not here to discuss the delights of sargassum
living, and that on the larger boat behind him waited anxious others silently watching who were depending on him to extricate
them from what had become an inopportune situation.

“We think your valley is beautiful,” he told the humanoid, “and we would like to stay and visit, but we have business to attend
to on the other side of the ocean.”

“Landsmen spend too much time attending to business and not enough time living. If you spent more time in the sea you would
be happier.”

“I could not agree with you more,” Ehomba replied. “However, I am a herder of cattle and sheep, and they do not do as well
in the ocean as jellyfish and clams.”

“I fathom.” The sargassum man popped something small and blue into his mouth.

“There is a problem with our leaving. Our ship cannot sail up the walls of your valley. There is not enough wind to make her
go fast enough. Not even if we sailed in circles until we got going as fast as we can and then tried. We need help.”

The humanoid nodded gravely. What strange thoughts must lie behind those impenetrable black eyes? the herdsman wondered. What
sights must they have seen? To someone like himself who so loved the sea, the temptation to wish oneself a similar life was
almost irresistible. Not all wishes in life, he reminded himself, could be fulfilled. He knew that despite his yearning, his
desire to spend time at sea would have to restrict itself to long swims from shore and endless walks on the beach below the
village. Perhaps, he mused, the sargassum man longs to walk on dry lands.

“We can do nothing.” The sympathetic humanoid spread leafy arms wide. “We
could
pull your ship out of the valley, but it would take a thousand sargassum men, and there are not that many dwelling within
many weeks’ journey of this place. Most live farther to the south, where the water is warmer and the seaweed beds more extensive.”

“Then there is nothing you can do for us?” Though disappointed, Ehomba was not surprised.

“Nothing. Nothing by ourselves.” The humanoid pressed four kelp-like, nailless fingers to his forehead. “Others might well
do better.”

“Dolphins?” The herdsman’s hopes rose. “There are dolphins in the area? I can tell them myself what it is that we need.”

“No. No dolphins here. They like clear, open water where they can swim fast and breathe easy. None of their greater cousins
are around, either. It is too bad. A few of them could easily pull your boat to safety. But I think I know someone who might
be able to help you. This is not a certain thing, landsman. But I like you. You come to learn and not to lecture, without
hook or net or line, and, unlike most of your kind, you have learned how to look into the water and see something besides
food. I will do what I can.” He started to sink back beneath the weed-choked surface.

“Wait!” Ehomba burbled. “When will we know if you can help?”

With only his head remaining above water, the sargassum man gurgled a reply. “When the king comes to you. If he is willing.”

Then he was gone.

Leaning over the prow of the longboat, the herdsman
peered down into the water. There was a lot of life to see less than a few feet from his nose: tiny crustaceans crawling through
the gently bobbing mat, the flash of falling sunlight off the silver sides of small fish, the fine patterns of jellyfish drifting
near the surface like abandoned, sodden doilies of fine lace. But no sargassum man. He was gone. Or at least it appeared that
he was gone. Like his offspring, he might well be lingering only a few feet away, laughing silently at the blind landsman
who had eyes but could not see.

“Take us back to the ship.” Ehomba turned away from the water and sat himself down. His back ached from leaning so long over
the prow.

Reversing his position on the center seat, the first mate took a firmer grip on the oars and pulled hard to extricate them
from the clinging weed. “Well, sir? What did the weed fella say? Will they help us?”

“They cannot. But he promised to speak to one who might, and entreat with him on our behalf.”

“One what?” Looking back at his passenger as they pulled free of the weed and into open water, he hauled on one oar and pushed
on the other, turning them toward the
Grömsketter
.

“I am not sure. One king, I think.”

The first mate’s heavy brows drew together. “There are no kings out here.”

“There are watery kingdoms just as there are kingdoms of the land, friend Terious. Who are we to say whether these folk have
kings of their own, and if so, what their nature might be? We must have help to escape this valley, and if that means treating
some creature of the sea as a king, why, I will be the first to bow down before him and
beg assistance.” His gaze left the mate to travel out across the water, toward the surrounding walls of sloping sea that
prevented them from continuing on their way.

“It will not be a king of dolphins, though. Or one of their larger cousins, nor sargassum people. It will be something else.”

“How will we know it, then?” Impatient to be back aboard ship, Terious drew hard on the oars, putting his back and full weight
into each stroke. “Will it come to us trailing a royal retinue, dressed in rich garment and jewels with a high crown perched
upon its head?”

Ehomba shrugged. “I suppose you will know as well as I, my friend. We do not know what it is, but I suspect it will not be
wearing clothes or crown. No creature of the sea that I have ever seen or heard tell of does so.”

“Nor any that are known to me,” the first mate replied as he strained at the oars.

They were right about the clothing, but wrong about the crown.

The sun slipped below the western rim of the valley, its shafting light turning the upper reaches of the slope into a sheet
of emerald. Darkness descended on the valley in the sea, on the noble ship bobbing gently in the ripples that were not strong
enough to qualify as swells, and on her apprehensive yet expectant crew.

Etjole Ehomba was no less anxious than any of them. With the ship’s lamps alight and several secured high up in the rigging
to mark the vessel’s location to any passing craft—or king—he stood on the main deck and stared out to sea, wondering at the
sargassum man’s parting words. What dwelled out there that was not porpoise or whale yet was potentially strong enough to
free the
Grömsketter
from
her obstinate sanctuary? What mysterious acquaintances did the green humanoid intend to converse with on their behalf?

A familiar voice nudged up alongside him. “Hoy, long bruther: We’re pondering the same thing, I think.” The swordsman’s gaze
was similarly drawn to the black waters on which the ship rode, and to the unknown depths beneath her keel. What monstrous
life-forms swam and fought and died there, down in the unfathomable abyss? Which of them could free the ship and her crew
and send both on their way? Sea serpents? Simna had heard many tales of such. The horrid great Kraken, with its clacking beak
and tentacles like a pack of pythons? A king, Ehomba said the weed man had told him. But king of what?

“Did you ever stop to consider what lies out there, Simna?” The herdsman spoke without taking his gaze from the water, even
though in the hush of night nothing save a few fleeting phosphorescences were visible, minuscule ghosts scuttling across the
surface of the sea.

“I’m not you, Etjole. I’m more inclined to ponder on what lies on the far shore, how expensive it is, how attractive, and
how much longer I have to spend rattling around inside a wooden hull before I’ll be able to investigate it.”

Ehomba murmured something inaudible before replying with conviction. “You are right, my friend. You are not me.”

“The treasure’s to be found in distant Ehl-Larimar, isn’t it?” As forthright as henna on a courtesan’s cheeks, avariciousness
rouged the swordsman’s words. “Watched over by Hymneth the Possessed. He’s obsessed by this Visioness he’s abducted, and so
are you, a little bit, but his
real concern and yours is the treasure he guards in his castle.”

“Simna, I really don’t—” Ehomba’s reply was cut short by a shout from the third mate. She was standing in the rigging on the
starboard side, the opposite side of the ship from the two travelers.

“Ware the gunwales! Something’s coming up!”

Everyone not on duty, passengers included, rushed to that side of the ship. With many of the crew already belowdecks either
in their hammocks or preparing to retire, it was not immediately swarmed. There was room for each individual to peer over
the side without crowding out a neighbor.

At first Ehomba saw nothing, only dark water and the barely perceptible reflection of a slivered moon. Then one of the sailors
standing by the boarding ladder that always hung over the side as a precaution, should anyone fall in, shouted and gestured
straight downward. What had moments before been apparent only to the mate from her elevated vantage point could now be seen
by all as it rose from the depths.

Several members of the usually steadfast crew broke and ran as soon as they caught a glimpse of the apparition, hurling themselves
belowdecks in hopes of hiding themselves away from the monstrosity. Others thought to find safety higher up in the rigging.
That left the main deck clear save for Stanager and the bravest of her company. Terious was not surprised to see that the
tall southerner held his ground, but the continued presence of the great black cat, the simple-minded brute, and the husky
swordsman led him to comment admiringly on their unity of purpose.

“After what we’ve seen and been through together these
past weeks, my ponytailed friend, there’s nothing above or below the waters that can frighten us.” Even as he delivered himself
of this characteristic burst of bravado, Simna was contemplating making a dash below for his sword, but he held back. For
one thing, a smart man could judge the imminence of danger by monitoring the herdsman’s posture and expression. Ehomba showed
no sign of concern, much less panic. He had not stiffened or drawn back from the apparition that was ascending majestically
from the depths. If he felt safe, then it was most likely that all who remained in his vicinity could likewise count themselves
reasonably secure.

Also, bolting the scene in search of weaponry would not make much of an impression on Stanager, who stood tense but agreeably
disposed to greet whatever was making its way up toward her ship.

The legs emerged first. Long and skeletal white they were, with touches of pink and carmine, as if a ghost had spent an evening
making itself up to attend a masked ball. Fearsome barbs and spines protruded from each limb. They were tipped in ebony, legs
armed with quill pens that had been dipped in the blackest of inks. Then the body appeared, equipped with an even more conspicuous
array of anomalous weaponry. Bulging eyes stared up at the humans that lined the railing. They goggled from the terminus of
stalks that weaved slowly from side to side.