Tyler's Dream (14 page)

Tyler nodded. “I promise.”

“Good. Now stay here and mind that pretty eye of yours!” Ottar laughed. “The ladies are going to swoon the moment they catch sight of that purple, bloated face of yours tomorrow. Get some beauty sleep to repair what you can!”

The ship buckled abruptly, flinging both Tyler and Ottar to the other side of the room. Ottar jumped with astonishing speed back to his feet, and with a sharp wink he ran out the door.

Tyler rose far more slowly and crawled onto his wet bed. His left hand had a nasty cut down the middle, and his eye was so badly swollen that it was difficult to see.
I’m heading in the right direction to looking like Orio,
he thought. A violent turn to the cabin ended this light-hearted musing, and he instead concentrated on holding on for dear life.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HERE DREAMS MAY LIE

When Tyler woke, it was with a sneeze. He snorted with surprise and looked around to discover he was lying on the floor. The storm must have tossed him out of his bed during the night, but it appeared his body was hardly going let a four-foot fall disturb his slumber. In his bones he knew that it was much later than he was usually accustomed to arising. His cabin mates must have stayed on duty all night, and thanks to them,
The Eye of the World
was still afloat. Groaning, he hoisted himself upright and straightened his back so suddenly that it cracked in twenty places.

Nothing could have prepared him for what lay await above deck … or what was left of it. The mast remained. All else – the rails, staircases, and pilot’s cabin – was badly smashed or had entirely disappeared.

The perpetrator of all this carnage, the sea, was utterly becalmed. The sun was bright, and there was not a puff of wind; it was as if the ocean had exhausted itself and was now spent for the day. Not so the sailors. The deck was a swarm of busy, black-eyed crew members sweeping, hammering, and securing this and that in a tremendous hurry.

“Tyler! I was just coming down to see you.” Thorfinn strode across the deck with an entourage of four or five unshaven seamen hurrying in their captain’s wake. Tyler smiled as the commander slapped him on the shoulder with a bear-like arm. “But lad, what happened to your eye? Your lid’s swollen as large as my fist! If some member of the crew has hit you, I’ll have them whipped.”

“It was my fault, Thorfinn. I fell during the storm.”

“Last night was a show, wasn’t it?” Thorfinn puffed out moodily. “I was worried for you. It’s dangerous walking about if you haven’t spent your life on a ship like the rest of us. I’m glad Kol sent you down to your room. I’ve already thanked him for it.” Tyler kept his peace, and Thorfinn mistook the pause for one of silent agreement. “It’s strange – three men were lost to the night. It was a fierce storm, but we do not usually have so many casualties.”

“May I ask their names?” Tyler asked as sadly as he could.

“Yes, although you will not like the news,” said Thorfinn. “The first was Heidrek Nailfist, who works in the galley; goodness knows what he was doing out on deck. The other two were your cabin mates, Furufis Moonback, and Ottar Blackclaw. They were good men. I’m sorry if you got to know them well.”

Ottar is dead
. Kol must have had him killed when he went back up last night, perhaps as revenge for interfering with Tyler’s murder … or to keep him quiet.

“Tyler, are you all right?” said Thorfinn’s with concern. “I’m sorry, you obviously became attached to these men.”

Tyler nodded weakly. His eye caught Kol, not more than ten paces away, untangling a knot of rope whilst eyeing him blankly.

“I’m afraid that lives were not all we lost,” Thorfinn went on. “My other two ships are also gone, missing to the waves. It may be some days before we find them.”

Tyler felt a faint surge of fear for Varkon.

“
Thorfinn!
Ship dead ahead!” bellowed a call from the crow’s nest.

“Is it
The Albatross’s Wing
or
The Seal
? Are they in good shape
?”

“It’s not one of ours, Captain. It’s called
The Sparrow
on its side.”

They drew closer to the wreck that was
The Sparrow
. Tyler had been let off any duty by Thorfinn; the commander refused to allow him to work with his eye in its current state. Tyler perched himself at the prow of
The Eye of the World
to watch their approach.

It was a large ship, perhaps even superior to
The Eye of the World
, but the damage wrought to Thorfinn’s vessel by the storm was nothing compared to
The Sparrow
. On such a beautiful day as this, where the sea swirled with gentle turquoise currents and lemon-backed turtles, and the blue sky emptied of every cloud, to see such destruction was unsettling.

As they neared, the particular details of
The Sparrow’s
wreckage became increasingly apparent. The ship’s main mast had snapped at its base, so its tip dragged at the water as though limp. Tattered streams of sail still fluttered from it. Its hull was almost entirely obliterated, so it was a wonder buoyancy was maintained. Yet despite this, the ship’s name was undamaged and was printed in bold white letters across its hold. A piece of ripped sail fluttered for a moment across the straight-backed letters.

Tyler suddenly shivered as a vague sense of primordial dread blew over him like an unexpected wind. As though in response to this uncertainty, he felt suddenly annoyed at Haranio. The old shamif had locked himself away in his cabin for several days now, his longest stretch yet. It would have been comforting to talk to a friend.

Great chunks of
The Sparrow’s
deck had been ripped open, as though a giant beast had gutted it with its claws. Jagged planks spiked outwards like the ribcage of a skeleton. Debris bobbed lazily on the ocean’s tranquil surface: kegs, chairs, and thousands of fractured planks burdened the surrounding waves and bumped against
The Eye of the World
as it ploughed cautiously closer.

“Hello?” Thorfinn’s voice thundered across the chasm separating the two ships, echoing off into the emptiness of the ocean. “Is anyone there?”

There was no movement or sound in return.

“The ship’s cursed,” hissed Orio to no one in particular.

Thorfinn turned to face the creature. “
Enough
. The men are afraid as it is.”

Orio winced at the rebuke and cowered, his long white fingers working nervously and small eye ticking in its socket.

“Is there no one there?” Thorfinn roared again.

The Sparrow
kept its silence.

“I’m going over. Odinn, Tanar, come with me,” ordered Thorfinn. “The rest of you will stay here. Kol, you’re in charge until I get back. If anything happens, promise me you’ll take the ship and head straight to Ithrim. Your oath.”

Kol bowed his head. “You have it, Captain.”

“Thank you, old friend,” Thorfinn said with a nod. “There may be food and water aboard
The Sparrow
. The Gods know we could use a piece of luck!”

“Don’t go.”

Two dozen heads turned as one. It took Tyler a moment to realise that he was the one who had spoken, and he swallowed nervously as he realised he would now have to explain. “This doesn’t feel right.”

Orio sniggered in the background, and several other members of the crew turned away to hide their laughs.

“Tyler, there’ll be nothing aboard but food and rats, I’ll wager!” Thorfinn said with a wink. Tyler’s face reddened as the commander strode away.

Not knowing what else to do, Tyler watched the boarding party from the prow. Thorfinn, Odinn, and Tanar approached
The Sparrow
on a rowing boat. They tied their little vessel to the smashed mast and boarded by scaling a “ladder” of broken planks to disappear into the belly of the hold.

An irrational dread slowly built in Tyler. It was as though a terrified voice was crying out for his attention, but thus far the words were distant and unintelligible. He closed his eyes to salvage some peace.

Corpses piled to the roof. Flies swarm and bloat his vision so that he cannot breathe for fear of choking. A figure sits cackling in a darkened co
rner.

“Lad! Are you all right?” Someone was shaking him roughly.

Still groggy from his horrid dream, Tyler batted the hands away. Everyone on the ship was in grave danger. He had just borne witness to what could only be a premonition of pure evil. “Where’s Thorfinn?” he asked.

“The captain is at the stern with the survivor they found on
The Spa
rrow
.”

Who had they found? What evil had they invited into their midst?

He rushed down to the back of the ship as fast as he could, bumping into men going about their jobs and tripping over debris on the deck. “Thorfinn!” he yelled, as he spotted the captain, who was standing at the centre of an oddly still crowd. They were staring at a figure lying on the deck. “Thorfinn, we are all in danger. We must—” He glanced down at the figure on the deck, and suddenly he was falling though the deck, though the ocean, the earth, the world. In the same instant he was back on the deck of
The Eye of the World
, staring at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he was lost for words. She appeared to be unconscious. Her hands were limply placed to either side of her gorgeous physique. Long strands of shifting blonde hair fell about her powdered skin.

“Land ho!” came the shout from the crow’s nest.

The woman’s eyes opened. They were twin pools of brilliant blue. Each held a broken piece of sky. “Where am I?” she whispered sleepily, rising to her elbow.

“A boat. I mean a ship,” a starry-eyed sailor blurted before he was silenced by a swift gaze from Kol.

“Let me help you.” It was Irrian, and he lifted the damsel carefully to her feet. “What happened to your ship,
The Spa
rrow
?”

The woman put a delicate hand to her head as she frowned. “I was on a journey with my father. There was a storm, I think.”

“Do you have a name?” asked Irrian.

“Ursula.” The lady looked at Tyler. He stepped back as though he had been dealt a blow to the head, and then he was stepping off a rowing boat and into the cool shallows of a beach. He looked around with surprise. The sudden end to the rocking of the ship came as an unexpected blow to his natural balance.

“Well, are you going to help me off this glorified bucket?” Haranio was sitting in the rowing boat that Tyler had just left. It was the first Tyler had seen of him in several days.

“Haranio?” said Tyler with confusion. “How did we get here? Where are we?”

Haranio looked at him strangely. “What are you talking about, Tyler?”

“I don’t remember how we got here,” Tyler said with rising panic.

“You’re not making any sense. We got here by rowing, and you did most of the work, so should remember it better than anybody. Now, I’m stuck in this boat, and you’re being infuriating. Help me off this thing, would you?”

Tyler shook his head and tried to calm his nerves. Perhaps that kick to his head last night was more serious than he’d previously thought. He helped Haranio onto the beach, noticing as he did how worryingly thin the old man had become. Haranio bore a gaunt, hungry look, and barely any flesh hung to his starved cheekbones.

“Are you sure you’re eating properly, Haranio?” said Tyler with a sudden concern. “You’re wasting away!”

“I’ll be fine. But this journey by sea has not been kind to me lad, that is obvious.” Haranio grimaced. “It will be good to feel the solid earth beneath my feet for a time.”

With that Haranio immediately transformed into a snow lion and padded into the jungle in his solitary way. Tyler felt a faint twinge of sadness for whatever friendly island creature was soon about to meet its violent and surprising end at the claws of a ravenous carnivore.

He noticed all the members of the crew were bustling around setting up tents and preparing fires on the beach. Ursula was strolling along the shore with Irrian. She had hiked up her skirt so that the water flicking across her ankles did not wet the fabric.

Tyler rubbed his eyes. He felt terribly disorientated.

“
What a paradise!” said Thorfinn, who appeared by his side. “How fortunate we are to have found such an oasis in this desert of sea. “Come exploring with me, Tyler. I want to find out just how large this place really is!”

Tyler blinked, and suddenly he was standing on what appeared to be the other side of the island with Thorfinn, who was pointing to the verdant, conical hill squatted in the island’s centre. White birds swung in arcs about it and voiced long, wheeling cries.

“You see them?” Thorfinn was saying, gesturing towards the birds. “Albatrosses. It is said that if you kill one by accident, your life will be plagued by ill fortune unless you wear the dead bird around your neck for the rest of your days.”

“Thorfinn, something’s happening to me.” The captain looked at him, waiting on Tyler to elaborate. “I have no idea how we travelled to this side of the island. I’m frightened.” Tyler stopped and frowned, remembering his intuition back on the ship that he should warn Thorfinn of something. He simply couldn’t remember
what
.

“Be calm, boy. You’re shaking,” said Thorfinn. “Tell me exactly what you remember.”

Tyler was about to reply when he looked around and realised that the stars were out. It felt like it was very late at night, and it was cold. Over Thorfinn’s shoulder there was an oar sticking out of the sand in the middle of the beach, the paddle pointed to the sky. A broad palm tree leaf tickled his cheek. He blinked and reeled with confusion. Thorfinn was nowhere to be seen. In fact, he was no longer standing on the beach at all, but the middle of a rainforest of giant, wet trees.
Am I going mad
? He shut his eyes as though this would somehow steady his thoughts.