The waters around the ship grew murky and sluggish. Green seaweed appeared, woven like emerald strands of hair through the waves, then thickening into grassy clumps. The weed smelled sour and moist, like decaying moss in a swamp.
As the breezes pushed them ahead, the weed became a morass. Criston was concerned when sailors had to use boathooks to tear ropy tangles from the prow. He guided the ship through any channels that happened to appear in the dark water.
Though Prester Hannes vehemently denied any involvement in killing Sen Aldo’s rea pigeons, Criston had his suspicions. How far would Hannes go to prevent the church from learning about the Leviathan skeleton? Still, the prester had sworn his loyalty on the Fishhook, a vow that would have brought down damnation if he reneged. And why would any of the mutineers commit such an appalling act so soon after receiving a reprieve? It made no sense.
Yet the birds were dead. The Captain’s Compass was smashed, perhaps not accidentally. Suspicion hung like a cloud over the Dyscovera. Criston quietly asked Javian and Sen Aldo to remain alert and to report any unusual activity.
With the Dyscovera barely moving through the quagmire, the crew had little to do but peer over the sides and wonder how far the morass would extend. Criston stood on the open deck, inhaling the swampy odor of seaweed.
He took out the old sea-turtle shell on which some long-lost sailor had inscribed a few islands, an unfamiliar coastline, and weathered squiggles in the water. The squiggles might have been anything…this wasteland of seaweed, perhaps? Even if that were true, the sea-turtle map did not help him.
The lookout called down, “Captain, I see something dead ahead in the water—and it’s moving.” The sailor used his spyglass. “It’s a man! There’s a man adrift out there!”
Criston shaded his eyes. “How can a man be all the way out here?”
Hannes joined him. “It may be a demon in the waters to tempt us, Captain. Be careful.”
Sen Aldo flashed a meaningful glance at the prester. “Or perhaps one of the mer-Saedrans came back to give us a second chance after they were so mortally offended.”
Criston chose a more likely answer. “Better still, what if we’re not so far from land as we thought? There could be other ships nearby. Maybe the man was only recently shipwrecked or thrown overboard. We’ll rescue him and hear what he has to say.”
The ship drew up alongside a bedraggled man in the water; he had draped himself over a weathered board from a ship’s hull. He waved to them, but did not seem desperate or frantic. Long matted hair covered much of his face.
“Throw down a ladder and bring him aboard,” Criston called.
As soon as it fell to the waterline, the castaway grasped the knotted ladder and pulled himself up. After the crewmembers helped to haul him over the ship’s rail, the stranger collapsed to his knees, dripping wet. His clothes smelled of mildew and rot.
Curious sailors rushed forward, full of questions, and Mia brought the man a cup of fresh water from the nearest rainbarrel on deck. “You’re safe now,” Criston assured him. “You’re aboard the Dyscovera.”
The castaway looked up at them with a hollow, terrifying expression. “I know this is the Dyscovera.” His skin was very pale, a grayish white. His eyes were sunken and dark after long privation at sea, but there seemed to be nothing behind them.
Mia was the first to recognize him, and she bit back an outcry. The stranger raised himself to his feet. “You don’t know me, Captain Vora? After you threw me overboard to my death?” Still dripping, he clawed the clumps of weedy hair from his face. “I knew you’d find me here soon enough.”
Thunderstruck, Criston realized it was Enoch Dey, the crewman who had tried to rape Mia. The captain had cast him into the open sea—months ago.
Javian put himself between Mia and the cadaverous man. “How did you get here? How are you still alive?”
“I am what you see,” Dey said. “And if you sail farther, you’ll discover other lost friends—I promise it.”
Criston issued automatic orders, “Get this man to a cabin—give him food, dry clothes.” Though deeply disturbed, he couldn’t cast the man overboard again—not when there were so many questions to be answered.
Silhouetted on the horizon at sunset were the spires of masts, tattered sails, a group of skeletal ships caught in the trap of seaweed.
Criston had provided Enoch Dey with basic comforts, but ordered him kept in the small brig until they understood more. The Dyscovera’s crew was ensnared in superstitious fear, and the prester was particularly uneasy. Criston didn’t blame them.
Dey remained in his cell, uncomplaining; he did not ask to come out, nor did he give any further explanations. He said only, “You’ll see with your own eyes soon enough, Captain. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He gave a snort that rattled with mucus. “You never believed me before.”
Now, upon seeing the graveyard of ships in the seaweed, Javian hurried up to Criston and asked, “If no one else has ever sailed this far, how can those vessels possibly be out here?”
Criston scanned the ships, trying to make out details. “They all look to be of Tierran design. I see no Uraban sails.”
“Maybe they sank any Uraban ships,” Hannes said. “A victory for Aiden.”
As the dusk bloomed orange, Criston could discern shadowy figures on the decks, awaiting the arrival of the Dyscovera.
“Let Mr. Dey out of the brig. I want to speak with him.”
The pallid man came across the deck. Though he had made some effort to clean himself, he still had an odd odor about him, like fermenting seaweed. “Now do you understand, Captain, what—and who—they are?”
Criston was losing patience. “Explain it to me, Mr. Dey.”
The gray skin twitched on the man’s face, and his lips curved, but it didn’t seem to be a smile. “Everyone aboard the Dyscovera has lost friends to the sea. These are the remains of vessels and crew—you will each know someone here.”
Prester Hannes held up his fishhook pendant and pushed it toward the undead castaway. “Our faith will drive away any demons.”
Enoch Dey ignored him.
As the Dyscovera came closer, Criston studied the wrecks through his spyglass, and realized that he did recognize two of them. One was a fishing boat so familiar to him in his youth, a boat he had watched sail away from Windcatch nearly every day—carrying his father, Cindon Vora, who had been lost at sea.
The other, much larger ship was the Luminara.