Beneath an Opal Moon (39 page)

He left the helmsman's side and, leaning against the starboard taffrail, luxuriated in the feel of the ship, the roll and scent of the sea, exulting in his mastery over them both.

“Isn't it strange that the moon should be visible at this time of the day?” The female voice came from behind him, rich and melodious and almost half mocking.

He turned quickly but he saw only Aufeya, clad in high shining sea-boots and sailor's loose shirt and pants, coming across the poop deck, the sun in her eyes, smiling at him.

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ONE

S
EA
-C
HANGE

The ship heeled over
and Moichi Annai-Nin shouted, ‘Haul away! By the Oruboros, haul away now, lads!'

All the sheets were being struck, coming down in fluted columns as the howling wind tore at them in great clawing gusts. But the mainsail, larger than the others and therefore more vulnerable, was caught out of position. The carefully tied rigging gave way beneath the violent storm's startlingly sudden fist. It tore the fittings like corks out of a line of bottles: pop! pop! pop!, the highest end of the triangular sail a serpentine banner, slapping wetly against the rain-slick mast before shredding into ragged tongues.

Moichi, his great brawny dusky-skinned body fighting aft toward the terrified tillerman, felt rather than saw the heightened agitation of the sea. The diamond set into the flesh of his right nostril flashed blue light as he drew in the sharp, charged scents of the storm, and he thought, damn this Bujun vessel and its delicate construction – unless I can straighten our course we'll go under for sure. He unsheathed one of the pair of copper-handled dirks that were his trademark, cutting through ratlines that had broken free and were whipping about the halyard.

Outwardly, he grinned hugely as he urged his men on with his immense confidence. But inwardly he cursed each and every one of their grimy souls, for he recognized the panic that had gripped them all on the
Tsubasa's
decks at the storm's initial onslaught. Well, he told himself resignedly as he went from group to group, hauling hawsers here, lashing down wildly swinging spars there, what can you expect from a crew dredged up from Sha'angh'sei's bituminous waterfront dens but drunken ex-sailors and drugged-out petty criminals whose dreams had been faded by time and evil incidence? He should never have allowed himself to cobble together such a crew, but the urge to return to his native Iskael with his love, Aufeya Seguillas y Oriwara, had been too much for him. He had been on dry land far too long.

This morning, six-and-a-half weeks out from Sha'angh'sei, the principal port on the southern face of the continent of man, he had been belowdeck with Aufeya, having already tested the wind thrice during the cormorant watch and learning nothing for his efforts. Or else he had been distracted by Aufeya. He had asked her to marry him when they reached his home in Iskael and she had accepted, her joy igniting the copper of her eyes.

A gray-green wave, opaque in its turbulence, sprang over the taffrail, soaking Moichi where he labored with a tangle of loose and shattered tackle. On his knees, he shouted a warning to those down below as the water roared across the mid-deck. It was then that Moichi felt the underlying power of the storm, and he knew that this was no ordinary tempest that periodically whirled through the eastern stretches of the Iskael Sea. For an instant, his mind seemed aware of something beyond the storm, yet quite a part of it, almost – and this was almost laughable – a kind of malevolent presence, as if the typhoon itself were alive. But that was quite impossible, he told himself, and went on with his frantic duties.

To make matters worse, the
Tsubasa
was no ordinary ship on which he had learned the art of navigation and sailing; it was a Bujun vessel – a gift from Moichi's bond-brother, the legendary Dai-San, who had saved the world of man from the Dolman and the invading forces of Chaos in the Kai-feng, the final cataclysmic battle that signaled the end of the Ages of Darkness and Necromancy.

The
Tsubasa
was like all things Bujun – that remote island chain the Dai-San had visited – delicate and mysterious as the mist that enshrouded its shores. The Bujun were reclusive, master warriors who preferred their own company. Many tales existed regarding the Bujun. One such insisted that they rode through the skies astride great horned and winged dragons called Kaer'n.

Though Moichi was a master navigator, he had yet to fully grasp the intricacies and peculiarities of this magnificent, superbly constructed Bujun vessel. As he rose, dizzy, blowing seawater from his nostrils, he cursed the impatience that had led him to set out for home too soon and with an improper crew. He staggered down the companionway to the mid-deck like an over-confident wrestler who, having stepped into the ring, was only now realizing the hidden reserves that lay behind the obvious strength of sinew of his opponent.

He risked a glance upward. There was no horizon. Instead, scudding clouds like angry bruises dipped to meet the rising sea, creating an almost seamless whole, a vast, writhing beast within whose belly the ship rocked and yawed dangerously. In every groan from the seasoned
kyoki
-wood timbers, from every pitch the ship took in the ever darkening swells, from the precarious bowing of the masts before the shrieking, gyring winds, his senses picked up the beginnings of the
Tsubasa's
death throes.

God bear witness, he berated himself, this would not have happened if I'd not been so involved belowdecks. Aufeya! Even now his thoughts betrayed him, straying to the silkiness of her creamy skin, the look of longing and love filling her copper eyes, the pleasure – sometimes gentle, other times fierce – of their nights together in the captain's cabin.

Dammit, no! Moichi had been born to be master of the seas: a navigator. And now, as captain of his own ship, he had at last achieved a lifelong dream. No storm, unnatural or no, would rip his new charge from beneath his bootsoles. Oh no, he vowed, gripping the railing to regain his balance. By the Oruboros, the great sea spirit who guides all mariners, I will not allow it!

The roiling clouds above his head mangled the murky periwinkle daylight into patches of shifting, menacing shadow that raced across the ship's foundering flanks as if they were working in concert with the angry sea in trying to pull it under.

The fittings howled in protest and the
Tsubasa
again shipped water dangerously. On Moichi's shouted orders men ran, stumbling, toward the bilges, manning overworked emergency pumps. But the wind was rising, sudden violent gusts like the claws of some evil-tempered beast making the tying off of the sails almost impossible. Moichi tried to shout further instructions to his crew but the storm cried him down hysterically.

The ship canted over, almost capsizing, and Moichi turned, heading back aft to the tiller. He was halfway up the companionway when he heard a cracking from over his head like the sundering of a roofbeam. He did not have to look up to know that the mizzen mast – the thinnest of the clipper's three masts – had been bent past its breaking point and had splintered.

He launched himself up the companionway and raced across the shuddering deck. Unmindful of the treacherous footing, he shoved men out of the way of the hardwood as it came crashing down in a bird's nest of rigging and tackle. Nevertheless, one of the cross-trees struck the first mate across his face, his flesh gashed open as he reeled backward, arms flailing in a vain attempt to right himself.

Moichi lunged after him, stretching to his full limit, slipping, then catching himself. His powerful fingers encircled the mate's wrist as a combination of his own momentum and the violent motion of the ship sent the man arcing over the side rail.

With a shriek, he disappeared, and Moichi was dragged several heart-stopping feet after him across the deck. He fetched up against the side with a rib-jolting blow. Half-dazed he held on, gritting his teeth with the effort, his muscles bulging, veins popping in lightning streaks.

He peered over the side, his face filled with seafoam and rain. He saw the mate's mouth twisted in terror, his eyes staring wildly. Blood ran off him like pink rain.

‘Hold on! I have you now!' Moichi shouted into the storm as he gathered his strength to bring the mate up onto the deck. But just then, the
Tsubasa
lurched sickeningly, sending the side they were on plummeting downward into the thrashing sea. My God, Moichi thought, it's dark down here. Like the underside of the world.

And with just an indifferent flick of its bulk the ocean took his mate from him, tearing his hand from Moichi's. The man's mouth opened in a silent shriek as the water in great black swirls lifted him into its embrace, up, up, and then, quite suddenly, sucking him into itself, down and away.

There had been absolutely no sensation of him slipping away, no intimation of what was to come. One moment Moichi had him firmly in tow, the next instant there was nothing to hold on to, just the chill wetness all around, moaning and pitching as if in agony.

God of my father, Moichi thought, I have never seen the sea like this.

His head came up and he squinted through the typhoon, thinking, No! By the Oruboros, this is too much!

But in truth his ears had not deceived him. They were picking up a vibration rather than a true sound – a horrid, bone-chilling rumbling that reverberated through his body and buzzed evilly in his brain.

With a bellow of rage, Moichi stormed the high poop deck and, shouting mingled instructions and encouragements to the young, petrified tillerman, brought his own brawny weight to bear on the protesting steering mechanism. It would not budge.

He raced to the railing, leaped down onto the mid-deck, gesticulating as he picked himself up and ran for the mainmast. ‘Raise the mains'l!' he cried. ‘Raise the mains'l!'

No one reacted. The best of them knew only to trim all sail, batten down all hatches and tackle in order to ride out a storm. Raising sail in the face of foul weather was unthinkable. What their captain was asking of them was sheer madness.

‘Move,' Moichi shouted, ‘or we'll all be dead men, lying at the bottom of the sea and food for the big fish!'

As if to underscore his words all light left the world. In the unnatural blackness the men turned aft. There came a shriek among them; or perhaps it was the infernal typhoon itself, laughing at its height, at the puny creatures who dared ride its coruscating back.

No matter. They all saw it at once: the
tsunami
. The towering wavefront, black and purple, had risen up behind them, traveling at a fast rate, growing and curling with every split second until it had formed a massive fortress wall threatening to engulf them. The pressure drop was palpable, a great rushing in their ears, a pounding in the heads. The crew stood paralyzed, staring helplessly at the advent of their doom.

Only Moichi was in motion, striding among them, screaming in their ears, shoving them this way and that. And still the building
tsunami
transfixed them. Then one among them came to life, moving to the mainmast, hauling with all his slight weight, his dark almond eyes sliding from Moichi's face to the rapidly unfurling sheet. It was the lone Bujun among them, a man who had kept to himself so completely throughout the voyage that Moichi could not even recall his name.

‘The Oruboros curse you!' Moichi shouted as he and the Bujun struggled with the mainsail. ‘You'll do as I say or die!'

Perhaps they felt the proximity of their deaths or perhaps it was the example of the grim-faced Bujun hauling mightily on the rigging that galvanized them. In any event, they threw off their stupor and bent to their task, moving as one to deploy the flapping mainsail, which moaned in protest as it was raised into the brunt of the storm.

Now Moichi left the Bujun to work them, and he returned to the high poop deck, bounding toward the ashen-faced tillerman. ‘Into the wind!' he shouted into the man's tense face. ‘By God and all that's holy, we'll be swamped in a moment if you can't do it!'

Moichi would not turn around, but he could feel the approach of the
tsunami
, feeling its vibrations, dark and deadly, rushing closer as each precious second raced by.

Bug-eyed in terror, the tillerman cried, ‘You're mad! You'll turn us right into the path of the wavefront! We'll be sucked down for sure!'

In desperation, Moichi threw the tillerman aside and, lifting his head, called for the Bujun. The mainsail was up and bowed, catching the lashing wind. If only the Bujun cloth would not rip in the typhoon's violence.

The small, almond-eyed man bounded up the companionway, and the instant his hands gripped the tiller, Moichi could feel the ship respond. He looked hard into the Bujun's eyes, saw only mute concentration as the man fought with him to turn the
Tsubasa
fully into the wind before the filled mainsail capsized them.