A Triumph of Souls (6 page)

It reminded him of the beaches below the village, of a home that was distant in space and becoming increasingly
distant in time. Glancing to his left as he leaned on the rail, he saw the shape of Stanager Rose stalking back and forth
among her crew, barking orders and encouragement. Dangerously distant, he thought as he resolutely returned his attention
to his two mismatched companions and their exuberant efforts to mine the piscine realm of its subsurface riches.

True to her estimate, the last repairs to the
Grömsketter
were completed by late afternoon of the following day. Fatigued but elated, Stanager emerged from her cabin and the luxury
of a Captain’s private sun-heated shower to join her passengers on the helm deck. Below as well as aloft, the reinvigorated
crew was making final preparations for departure, as much rejuvenated by the respite from sailing and rough weather as was
their ship.

Stanager refused to let the concern that had nagged at her ever since their arrival in the sanctuary dilute her high spirits.
“All is in readiness,” she told her guests. “We can leave now or on the morrow and resume our course westward. I have ciphered
our position. Though we were blown far north into waters I do not know, the necessary adjustments are straightforward enough.
We will sail a little more to the south, and still arrive at the trading port of Doroune less than a week later than originally
planned. We carry more than enough stores to sustain us through the delay.” She contemplated the placid waters.

“There is only one element I cannot account for, and that my experience is not equal to.” Raising a hand, she gestured over
the railing. It did not matter in which direction she pointed, because their surroundings were identical on all sides. And
therefore, so was the problem.

“I have sailed through straits so narrow they would
pinch a coal lugger’s gut, navigated my way past shelves of coral and rocks so black they could hardly be seen by the lookout.
I have taken the
Grömsketter
safely past whirlpools strong enough to suck a lesser vessel down to its doom, and seen to a fire in the galley in the middle
of the night. But I have never, ever, had occasion to try to sail uphill.” She was watching Ehomba closely.

“This astonishing liquid vale has been a welcome refuge. Now, how do we escape it?”

Ehomba returned her gaze. Nearby, Simna ibn Sind leaned back against the rail and grinned. It always amused him when his tall
friend startled the skeptical with one of his unexpected magical revelations. He looked forward with great anticipation to
the look of amazement and realization that was soon to come over the Captain’s beautiful face.

“I do not know,” the herdsman replied frankly.

“What?” Stanager’s expression hardly shifted.

Simna’s grin widened. “Hoy, he’s just toying and teasing with you.” He smiled at his companion. “The stiffer they are, the
harder it is for them to loosen up and have a laugh. Right, long bruther?”

Ehomba turned to him. “I am telling the truth, Simna. I do not know how we are going to get free of this place and back out
onto the upper ocean proper.”

“Right, sure!” The swordsman smiled at their hostess. “Would you believe that there was a time when I thought he had no sense
of humor? Tell her, Etjole. Tell her now.”

“I just did,” the herdsman responded quietly. He considered the watery late-afternoon panorama. “I have no idea how one is
supposed to sail uphill.”

His expression falling, Simna straightened away from the railing. “This isn’t funny, bruther.”

Ehomba glanced over at him. “Why should it be? As you have said yourself, I have no sense of humor.”

Stanager moved nearer. “If you had no notion of how to leave a place like this, why did you guide us into it?”

“Because you insisted you needed a place to rest and repair, and this was the only such shelter I could detect. Attend to
the ship first, I thought, and deal with the leaving later.”

“Well, the later has arrived, bruther.” Simna was no longer smiling. “Time to deal with it.”

“I am trying, my friend.” He looked hopefully at their Captain. “Have you any ideas?”

Placing her hands on the rail, she regarded the valley in the sea. Soon it would start to grow dark again. “Terious and his
people are stout of arm and strong of back, but I don’t think even they could kedge uphill.” She spared a quick glance for
the sails. “We have some wind, but not enough to gain sufficient momentum to push us up one of these enclosing slopes. We
might sail partway before sliding back. This is a magical place. Your friend claims you are a magician.” Her gaze was steely.
“Make some magic, Etjole, or we will surely all grow old together in this place.”

“My friend is constantly overrating my abilities. It is a conceit of his.”

“There must be a way out!” Simna was, however mildly and gracefully, feeling the gnawing edge of panic. “You speak to dolphins;
I’ve seen you do it. Call them up and make a bargain with them! Have them pull and push us back to the surface above.”

“I can speak to the sleek people of the sea, yes,” Ehomba admitted, “but I cannot call them up, Simna. And believe me, I have
been looking for them. But from where we are now I see neither spout nor fin.”

“Then talk to the fishes! I know there are many here, and of diverse kinds. Strike a compact with them.”

The herdsman flashed a look of regretful sadness. “Would that I could, my friend. But fish are of a lower order than dolphins,
and can speak but few words.” Peering out across the sea, he tried to see hope where there was only seaweed and water.

“The sky-metal sword! Call forth a wind strong enough to fill every sail and blow us out of here.”

“Now Simna, remember what I have told you. Care must be taken in the use of that blade. If it is used too often and too many
times in the same period, the consequences of its employment become dangerously unpredictable. Perhaps in a few weeks it might
be safe to try again.”

“A few weeks!” Whirling, the swordsman stalked off in search of a sympathetic ear to bend with his complaints. Knowing that
the cat would not tolerate his ranting, he settled instead on poor Hunkapa Aub, who would sit and smile patiently through
any tirade, no matter how lengthy or pointless.

“What are we going to do?” Stanager had moved to stand close to the herdsman—though not so close as before.

“As I said, I do not know.” Ehomba brooded on the matter. “The answer is here. There is always an answer, or there could not
be a problem. But I confess I do not see it. Not yet.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. A reassuring hand, devoid of secondary meaning. “Look hard then, herdsman. I will look elsewhere,
and between us it can be hoped that a solution will be discovered.” Turning, she headed toward the main deck.

Left to himself, Ehomba contemplated fish and weed, sea and sky. Somehow the
Grömsketter
had to be pushed or pulled out of the valley and back onto the surface of the ocean proper. If it could not be done by wind
or muscle power, then some other way must be found. His eyes fell to where the water lapped gently against the sturdy side
of the ship.

If only Simna was right and I could talk to fish
, he thought. But those fish he could speak with had little to say, fish not being noted even at their most amenable as being
among the most voluble of conversationalists. Yet again it struck him forcefully what a wonderful place the valley would be
to live, if only there was a little bit of land.

Of course, in the absence of land there were other things with which the appropriately equipped might endeavor to make a living.
There was an abundance of fish, and calm conditions, and seaweeds in abundance.

A fragment of an old tale of Meruba’s popped into his head. He struggled to remember the details, to envision all of it, but
it hovered frustratingly just out of reach, skipping and skittering away from his most strenuous efforts at recall.

He went to bed with it nagging at him, and the ship still trapped within the haven that had become a prison.

“Put a boat over the side.”

The morning had dawned a duplicate of the previous
mornings in the valley: calm, sunny, the water stirred by only the gentlest of breezes. Anxiety was now scribed plain on
the faces of the crew, for, having completed even unnecessary repairs, they had begun to wonder why they continued to remain
in the watery depression, and at the lack of explanation from their Captain and mates.

“Going fishing?” Hovering near the stern rail, Simna ibn Sind eyed his friend glumly.

“In a manner of speaking.” The herdsman turned back to Stanager. “What I intend will demand my full attention.”

“I’ll send Terious to row you. Unless you plan to go far.”

“I hope not. You are not coming?”

She gestured behind her. “The
Grömsketter
is my charge. A Captain does not leave her ship in the middle of the ocean unless it is at the invitation of another vessel
to visit. But I will watch.”

He nodded. “Let us not waste time, then. When the sun rises to the midpoint of the sky, it will be too hot.”

“I know. What are you looking for, Etjole?”

“I am not sure. A part of an old wives’ tale.”

“That’s not very encouraging.”

He smiled hopefully. “The old wives of the Naumkib are not like any others.”

As soon as the boat had been safely lowered, Ehomba followed the first mate aboard. Settling himself in the bow, he instructed
the complaisant Terious to row for the thickest, densest mat of seaweed he could find.

“We won’t make much progress through that,” the mate warned his passenger as he pulled hard and steady on the oars. The boat
moved away from the
Grömsketter
, out into the open water of the valley. “And not for very long, either.
As soon as we’re in among the weed it will be like trying to row through mud.”

“Then we will back out and try another place.” Ehomba stood in the bow, one foot on the small foreseat, his right arm hanging
at his side and the left resting on his knee.

True to the first mate’s word, they soon found themselves surrounded by thick green water plants, the little boat struggling
to make any additional headway despite Terious’s most strenuous efforts.

“This is the best I can do,” the mate declared.

“Row us back out, then.” Ehomba’s sharp, experienced eyes scanned the mass of weed and saw nothing. It stank of salt and the
open ocean. “We will try another patch.”

They did not have to. A dark, slick shape was rising before them. Decorated with leafy structures that perfectly mimicked
the surrounding seaweed, trailing streamers of glossy green the exact same size and shape as kelp roots, it regarded them
out of black, pupil-less eyes that were gently bulging ovals lustrous as black star sapphires. The small slit of a mouth was
a tiny oval set over where one would expect to find a chin, except there was none; the rest of the face was smooth and shiny
as the seaweed it counterfeited. Gills on both sides of the neck revealed themselves only when they rippled to expose momentarily
the pink beneath.

“Kalinda uelle Mak!”
Terious exclaimed as he briefly lost his grip on the oars. “What in the name of all the ten seas is that!”

“A missing piece of memory,” Ehomba told him, not flinching away from the aqueous apparition. “Part of a tale told since childhood
to the young people of my village by
those of the Naumkib who have been to sea.” Manipulating his expression in what he hoped was the appropriate manner, he made
a round circle of his mouth and blew softly. “It is a sargassum man.”

T
he initial reaction on board the
Grömsketter
to the sudden eruption of the gilled, beleafed, brown-and-green homunculus directly in front of Ehomba was one of confusion
and alarm. His sleep disturbed, Ahlitah stirred reluctantly to wakefulness. Simna and Hunkapa Aub rushed to the railing, and
it was the swordsman who broke out into a broad grin and hastened to reassure the crew.

“It’s all right! I told you my friend was a wizard. See what he has summoned up out of the sea.”

“It didn’t look like he called anything up,” declared one of the crew from his position in the rigging just above the helm
deck. “It looked like they were starting to back clear of the weed and the malformed thing just arose in front of them.”

Simna threw the sailor a look of transient anger, then smiled anew at the uncertain Stanager. “No, Etjole called it forth.
You’ll see. Everyone will see.” He returned his attention to the patch of drifting weed where the confrontation was taking
place.

I hope
, he thought uneasily.

Out on the open water, observing that his lanky passenger had not lost his, Terious regained his composure. “A
what
man?”

Not taking his eyes from the inquisitive dark green humanoid shape that now bobbed effortlessly in front of them, Ehomba endeavored
to explain. “Sargassum man. They dwell in the mats of seaweed that float on the surface of all the oceans of the world. I
have never seen one before, but they were described to me in stories told by the old people of my village.” Glancing back
over a shoulder, he regarded the astonished mate curiously.

“Did you not know, Terious, that the world is home to many kinds of men? There are hu-mans, like you and I, and sargassum
men, like this fellow here. There are cavemen, and neander men, treemen and sandmen, and many other kinds of men not often
encountered but as comfortable in this world as you or I.”

The mate shook his head slowly. “I have never heard of or seen any of the kinds of men you speak of, sir.”

“Ah well. It may be that living in such a poor, dry land as the Naumkib do, we learn to see things a little more clearly than
other peoples. Perhaps it is because there is so little around for us to look at.” Turning back to the leafy humanoid shape
that waited patiently in the midst of the mass of weed, Ehomba pursed his lips in an odd way and made sputtering noises. To
Terious they sounded like the gurgling a child makes when it blows bubbles underwater. After all that he had witnessed during
the last several days, the mate was not at all surprised when the outlandish sea creature responded in kind.