Ship of Dreams Page 3

  “Never!” said Hero, smacking his lips. “But what a waste. This—” he tapped the bottle with a fingernail “—is a wine to be savored in palaces of the gods. A vintage to enhance the flavor of rare viands—not guzzled in a matchstick boat on a midnight sea … Here, you take this bottle back and I’ll crack one of my own!”

  And he did …

  Now where hard drinking was concerned Hero and Eldin could normally hold their own with anyone in dreamland. They had boozed and battled their way into and out of at least one quarter of all dreamland’s towns and cities, and fully intended to work their way through the other three. This time, however, they were up against the unknown and the unexperienced. Namely, a wine of Sarkomand, matured in the bottle for five long centuries.

  Later, when Hero had time to think about it, he would half-remember a similar bout of wine-bibbing in the cavern of Thinistor Udd—and its consequences. He would vaguely recall thinking how exquisitely smooth the wine of Sarkomand was in the swallowing, and how he could probably drink a gallon before it caught up with him. Which must have been about fifteen seconds before it caught up with him! Also in the less accessible regions of his mind were kaleidoscope memories of idiot giggling bouts, and coarse, raucous ballads, and of Eldin collapsing with his legs over the tiller, and of the sky going round and round and round and …

  Following which, he remembered the agony of regaining consciousness to thin morning mists, and of lying in the bottom of a boat that rocked and rocked and rocked … until weak with nausea he lapsed back into his drunken stupor. Then there had been a second wakening, this time to a night sky full of stars which seemed so close that he need only put out his hand to touch them.

  And finally there was the present realization that at last it was daylight once more, or very nearly so, and that he was stiff and numb and at last truly awake—the wine burned out of his system, his mouth dry as shredded paper, his eyes burning like hot coals where they gazed up startled from his haggard face into a newly dawning sky—and that the sound of Eldin’s groans of misery were sending lances of fire into his skull.

  And the knowledge that something had awakened him—had literally shocked him awake—but what?

  As if in answer to his unspoken query, the something came again: a great throbbing of leathery wings and a nightmare shape that flapped into view level with the top of the single slender mast. A huge night-gaunt, rubbery and horned, its bared tail seeking purchase on the mast and its prehensile paws grasping at the sail’s thin canvas sheet.

  “Gaunt!” croaked Hero, leaping (or at least staggering) to his feet—only to be knocked flat a moment later as a second gaunt landed behind him on the port gunwale and buffeted him with its faceless head. For answer to his hoarse-voiced warning Eldin groaned even louder, and Hero might have joined in if his entire being had not already frozen solid.

  For he had fallen down with his head and shoulders protruding over the starboard gunwale, which position had served to bring him face to face with the most unexpected and unnerving view of his entire existence in both waking and dream-worlds alike. Far down below the keel of the boat, seen through wispy breaks in a bank of pink and fluffy cloud, the mountains, rivers and angular coastline of dreamland looked like features on a small-scale relief map!

  So, instead of groaning, Hero gave a completely uncharacteristic little shriek and hung on desperately to the gunwale as the boat rocked and threatened to tip him into space. And as a flood of adrenalin drove the last dregs of wine from his fevered veins, so the realization dawned on Hero that things had once again gone disastrously wrong.

  They were sailing on the Cerenerian Sea in that region of dreamland where the west wind flows into the sky, where cloud-floating, pink-marbled Serannian’s incredible bulk is builded on an ethereal shore of clouds. Indeed, they might yet tie up in Serannian’s harbor—

  —Unless the night-gaunts sank them first!

  CHAPTER IV

  Man-o’-war

  The boat tilted farther yet, until Hero felt himself sliding head first into leagues of sky—but in another moment there came Eldin’s grunt of exertion, the whistle of his straight sword slicing air, and the sweet thwack of its blade biting deep into rubbery flesh. Then Hero heard his friend’s hoarse cry of delight, which almost immediately turned to a croak of alarm as the boat abruptly, violently, rocked back the other way; so violently that Hero was thrown upright against the mast. Feeling his legs under him and steady once more (or nearly so), he drew his sword and sliced at the first alien thing he saw: the half-severed leg of a gaunt where the creature clung to the port gunwale and flapped its mighty bat-wings in a frenzy of agony.

  His stroke was good; the curved Kledan steel finished the job Eldin’s blade had begun; the gaunt lifted off minus a paw and lower limb and flapped erratically aloft. Hero fancied he could almost hear its screams, and if the thing had had a mouth then certainly he would have heard them. But the crippled gaunt was forgotten in another moment. It was not important. Nothing was important except … where the hell was Eldin?

  Then something heaved and thrashed in the belly of the boat and Hero felt his leg grasped in a steely grip. He gave a great sigh of relief as the heaped nets parted and Eldin emerged red-eyed and roaring. “Gaunt, did you say?” he yelled. “Gaunt? In the singular? Man, there’s half-a-dozen of the damned things! I haven’t seen such a flock since our little scrap with Thinistor Udd. And that one there—” he pointed with his sword at the lopsided shape that fluttered jerkily in the sky high overhead “—he almost had me overboard … Look out, lad—here they come again!”

  There were indeed six gaunts in all, including the one they had crippled, and as Hero turned from his companion he saw four of the remaining five come winging in to the attack. As for the fifth—that one was a giant! The biggest gaunt Hero could possibly have imagined, but for all his great size he kept well away from the boat. Hero slitted his eyes in the dawn light and just before the four flyers struck he could have sworn that he saw—a rider? A man or youth, seated well back on the neck of the huge faceless fifth beast. And then—then he was obliged to give all of his attention to more pressing matters. Namely, the attempted wrecking of the stolen boat by these weirdly purposeful gaunts.

  No real chance for the adventurers to use their swords now, for the gaunts came at them from below, tilting the boat this way and that with their necks and back in an earnest and dreadfully urgent attempt to tip it over. Then one of the rubbery monsters backed off and hurtled in like a dart, its wings folding back at the last moment, to strike the boat such a blow with its arched back that the starboard strakes were stove in. Not only did this action damage the boat but the gaunt too, for following its near-suicidal swoop it rapidly lost height and spiraled down into the cloudbank far below.

  “Two down and four to go!” Eldin hoarsely cried as he hastily roped one of his legs to the tiller.

  “No, only three,” Hero contradicted, hanging onto the wildly swaying mast and waving his curved blade aloft as the specified trio swooped about the wallowing craft, apparently pondering fresh tactics.

  “Three?” Eldin queried.

  “Yon big fellow has a rider,” yelled Hero, “but whoever he is he’s a poor general. He commands his troops from the rear. Do you see him?”

  “Aye, I see him now,” Eldin answered. “Little more than a youth from his looks. But … a youth with power over night-gaunts? What in hell’s all this about? What’s he got against us?”

  “Search me,” said Hero. “If we can hang on a few minutes more, though, I reckon we’ll come out of this in one piece.”

  “Oh?” yelled Eldin as the three circling gaunts turned inward and came at them in a concerted rush. “And how did you come to that conclusion?”

  “It’s daylight,” cried Hero, slashing at one of the three and causing it to swerve and collide with the mast, which snapped off at its base and was carried off, sail and all. “Gaunts aren’t supposed to like daylight.”

  “You’
d better tell them that!” Eldin roared as one of the brutes hit the port strakes such a blow that they shattered inward and showered the pair with splinters of wood.

  The boat was obviously done for now. Only the keel held it together where it lay low in the stern and listing badly to port. “This is madness,” Hero shouted, gazing wildly and uselessly about. “How the hell do we bail her out?”

  “Forget it,” Eldin yelled his answer. “Here they come again—and it seems we’ve no choice but to go down with out ship!”

  They braced themselves for what must be the final assault as the gaunts came at the boat from below. One after the other the hideous creatures hurled themselves at the keel and the bottom strakes, and the boat shuddered and bucked with each fresh strike. It was surely all over now.

  Then—

  Blinding rays of light stabbed with startling suddenness out of the east, soundlessly seeking out the attacking gaunts where they now flapped and fluttered in a frenzy of terror. The great gaunt and its rider, barely avoiding these raking beams from their as yet unknown source, now veered sharply away across the sky to enter a cloudbank where it lay like so much cotton wool to the west.

  The other gaunts immediately followed suit, but as they went one of them was caught by twin beams of brilliant white fire. There was a rasping, rending sound then, and a moment later all that remained of the stricken creature was several tatters of black rubbery stuff, exploding outward and spinning dizzily downward into oblivion.

  In a matter of seconds the sky was empty of enemies, and the men in the foundering boat shielded their eyes against the sun which now emerged fully from the clouds to the east. Hero blinked, screwed up his eyes and blinked again, then gasped as he saw a fully-rigged man-o’-war riding the cloud-crests. Sailing directly out of the sun, its decks were lined with the bright mirrors of numerous ray-projectors.

  “A warship!” cried Hero. “But what a vessel—a ship of the clouds!”

  “A light in the sky,” rumbled Eldin, not nearly so elated.

  “Hey!” yelled Hero, standing up and waving a strip of sail-cloth at faces which peered down from the railed deck. “By all that’s good, take us aboard, lads. Quickly now, or we’ll surely go down with our brave little boat …”

  “Either way, we’re sunk,” growled Eldin under his breath as the ship gracefully drew alongside.

  This time Hero heard him. “Sunk?” he repeated. “Man, we’re saved!” But seeing his companion’s worried frown, he asked: “How do you mean, sunk?”

  “This is one of Kuranes’ ships,” Eldin explained, “kept in good fighting trim since the Bad Days. He has a great armada of them. Don’t ask me what it’s doing out here—and I suppose we’re lucky to be pulled of this damned hulk anyway—but one thing’s certain: we’re bound for Serannian.”

  “And that’s bad, eh?” said Hero, grabbing at a rope ladder where it came snaking down from the ship’s rail. “Is it worse than falling a couple of miles out of the sky in a cockleshell boat? What’s so bad about Serannian?”

  “Nothing,” grunted Eldin. “It’s a beautiful place—except Kuranes is there. He spends his time between Celephais and Serannian, remember?”

  Climbing the ladder, Hero said: “So?”

  Close behind him Eldin gave an impatient snort. “He’s constantly in touch with Celephais,” he explained. “They use pigeons. Old Leewas Nith, he might just have told Kuranes all about us.”

  Hero looked down at Eldin’s upturned face. “What? Are we notorious, then? What we did in Celephais wasn’t so bad … Considering.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Eldin growled deep in his throat. “But quiet now, they’re waiting for us.”

  As they reached the rail willing hands helped them climb aboard. Too willing, as it transpired, for when at last they stood upon the deck it was without their swords. They had been deftly removed and passed into the hands of members of the ship’s crew where they stood behind a uniformed circle of pikemen. The pikes of the latter were all centered upon Eldin and Hero.

  “Here, lads,” said Eldin in a gruff hurt voice, “is this any way to welcome a pair of fellow sea dogs?” Holding his stomach in from the points of the pikes, he looked askance at his companion.

  The pikemen were all small men, but sturdy, and many of them had the aristocratic looks of men of Ilek-Vad. “Who are you?” their commander asked. “And what were you doing out on the Cerenerian Sea in a small boat?”

  “Us?” Hero tried his hardest to look innocent. “Why, we’re, er, fishermen, of course. Blown off course by a storm—and then attacked by night-gaunts.”

  “From which you rescued us,” added Eldin, “which proves our story.”

  The commander nodded. “Oh, we rescued you from gaunts, all right—but what’s this about a storm?” He frowned. “Why, there’s been nought but fair weather for a threemonth!”

  Now the vessel’s captain came forward, pushing through the pikemen until he faced the newcomers. He was tall for a native of the dreamlands, bearded and keen-eyed. His eyes narrowed now as he stared at the two, and a grin spread slowly across his face. “By all that’s—” he began. “Why! It’s Eldin the Wanderer and David Hero!” He grasped Hero’s hand and pumped it, then thumped Eldin’s shoulder with a clenched fist.

  Eldin roared delightedly and returned to the punch. “Look who it is, David!” he cried. “Why, it’s old—er—old …”

  “Dass,” the captain prompted him. “Limnar Dass.” He smiled broadly and turned to Hero. “Don’t you remember me? That fight in the tavern at Barrugas—the way we had to make a run for it?”

  “Eh?” said Hero, wildly searching his memory. There had been a good many brawls in a good many places. Finally he said, “Of course we remember you, er, Dass, certainly.” But despite his assurance a niggling doubt was growing in the back of his mind. “We remember him, don’t we, Eldin?”

  “Damn right!” cried Eldin, pummeling the captain’s shoulder again for good measure.

  But Dass had stopped smiling. “I never saw you in my life before,” he coldly stated. “But at least we now know for sure that you are who we thought you were. As for Barrugas: I was never there. Since it’s a snake’s nest of thieves, however, I was pretty sure that you two would know it—Eldin the Wanderer and David Hero!”

  “That was a dirty trick,” Eldin snarled, reaching for the captain’s throat with hands like great hams. A pike prodded him in the midriff and another lifted to point at his heart.

  “Easy, old lad,” said Hero softly, his hands tight knots of iron hanging at his sides. “Now is not the time. You’re right though—it was a damned dirty trick.”

  “Perhaps it was,” said Dass. “And perhaps I should have made you ‘swim,’ as you made the owner of your stolen boat! No, no, you two—don’t talk to me about dirty tricks. Would you have preferred to stay aboard yon hulk there?” He pointed to the little fishing vessel where it slid slowly downward into clouds, its prow pointing skyward until, gaining speed, it disappeared from view.

  “All right,” said Hero with a shrug. “As it happens you’ve done us a favor. And you know all about us. Which only leaves one question. What now?”

  Now the captain’s grin was an honest one. He looked the pair up and down in open admiration. “You’re a couple of cool ones, I’ll grant you that,” he said. “As for what happens now: you may as well relax, for we won’t be in Serannian for another three or four hours yet. And there’s only one way off this ship … Straight down! I was about to take a meal. Will you join me?”

  “Food?” said Hero, realizing how empty his belly felt. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “What?” cried Eldin. “Eat? With a dog who’d play that sort of dirty trick on me? Not likely!”

  Dass shrugged, took Hero’s arm and began to turn away. “Hold!” growled Eldin; and more quietly: “What’s on the menu?”

  “Duck,” said Dass, “with small potatoes and green peas. And liqueurs and brandy from Iztar-Iln.”
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  “Brandy?” Eldin’s mouth watered.

  “Aye,” Dass nodded. “Not so fiery as the brandy of the waking world, they tell me, but good for that. Well, are you coming? Or would you prefer good bread and cheese with the pikemen, and a cup of strong green tea to wash it down?”

  Eldin considered for a moment, then said: “I accept your apology!”

  Leading them to his quarters, Captain Limnar Dass chuckled inwardly at the style of these two rogues. He wasn’t sure why King Kuranes wanted to see them, but he would find it a great pity if they were to be punished too harshly. He liked their cut. The dreamlands could do with a few more like these two—

  But only a few …

  CHAPTER V

  City in the Sky

  While Hero and Eldin enjoyed the captain’s company, food and drink, above decks a pigeon was taken from its basket and a message inserted into the tiny cylinder attached to its leg; and while yet the adventurers sipped their liqueurs, the bird was airborne over the ship’s billowing red sails and winging for Serannian. Thus it was that as the man-o’-war breasted the cloud-crests for port—which was still distant by more than a good hour’s sailing—knowledge of its coming, and of the passengers it carried, passed into the hands of King Kuranes.

  This was not the first communication the King had received in respect of the two men aboard the man-o’-war. Indeed, over the past twenty-four hours there had been three such messages. This was the first, however, from one of the three ships Kuranes had sent out to search the Cerenerian Sea for a small fishing boat, that same craft stolen by Hero and Eldin in Celephais …

  As for the other messages: they had all been from Leewas Nith. The first had been in the form of the magistrate’s weekly report of court proceedings, in which the case of Eldin the Wanderer and David Hero was given brief mention; the second had been to report certain matters of burglary, assault and piracy, which crimes had also allegedly involved the same pair of adventurers; and the third had been a wordy report which told a most strange and astounding tale.