“When I could no longer bear the thought of it going any other way.”
“Aye, that makes two of us.”
The crew gathered on the deck to watch the fog in eerie silence. Within the hour, it had swallowed us. There was no wind to accompany it. No sound. All there was was a smell of sorts. The subtle odor of rain and smoke combined filled the air and as the fog thickened, so did the silence. Nothing but my own steady pulse and the occasional moan of the ship’s wooden frame graced my ears. I could barely see five feet in front of me and sight was a sense I did not want to be deprived of.
“Eyes sharp, David,” I called toward the crow’s nest.
“Can’t see nothin’ from up here,” he called back.
I sighed, expecting as much.
Reaching into the pocket of my coat, I pulled out my compass. I flipped the metal cover open to confirm we were still going northeast, but despite being on what we thought was the right course, the voice lingered in the back of my mind. The voice telling me that the path we were on was not going to be as simple as following a dial.
Slipping the compass back into my pocket, I let my head fall back and stared up into the misty whiteness around me. I could battle storms. Creatures of the deep. Men. Taking a deep breath, I tried to prepare myself to fight the newest monster. The silentnothingness.
The worst monsters
cannot be killed with a blade
~Unknown
Nikolai stood at the helm while I stood at the bow, elbows perched on the railing as I gazed out at the blurry glow of the lanterns in the longboats below. An empty bowl of what used to be bean and ham stew was rested in my hands, but despite Boil’s uncanny ability to season food with so little on hand, it tasted bland to me. Even the thought of food was losing its appeal.
“Men are about to change shifts,” Nazario said beside me, staring at the same faint glowing orbs in the fog.
“Good,” I said.
He pulled a small, glass flask from a leather pouch on his belt and handed it to me. I could smell the rum before I brought it to my lips and took a sip.
“Twelve days,” he muttered as he took back the flask and took a swig himself. “That’s a long time to not see the sun.”
“It is a long time to not have wind,” I sighed, glancing up at the lax sails. “If the men keep towing the Weaver at this rate, therations will be gone sooner than we can afford. But they need the strength.”
“Aye. It would appear that we’ve gotten ourselves in a little bit of a bind.”
“It was expected. We all knew what could happen.”
A pair of footsteps too soft to be any of my men wandered up behind us. We both turned to see Dahlia and Meridan, an air of tension between them.
“Meri—” Dahlia started.
“I am going in the water,” Meridan cut her off.
“You’re not,” Dahlia argued, but Meridan kept her eyes on me, ignoring her.
“It’s been nearly two weeks of windless wandering. Your men are getting tired and their spirits are low. I will swim ahead. I come from deephome. My eyes know the darkness better than anyone here. And I’m faster than you,” she said toward Dahlia. “I have the best chance of outrunning something if anything should show itself.”
“These waters are different. What do you think you will find?” Dahlia said.
“Shallows. A current. Anything.”
“Meridan, she is right,” I said, stepping toward her. “You can’t possibly know the waters here any better than we can.”
“It’s been quiet for many days. If anything is following below, I will find out. If there is nothing, then I can scout ahead, but even I am feeling the effects of this stillness. I must busy myself.”
My eyes shifted to Dahlia who, by the look on her stern face, had been arguing with Meridan for some time. But she and I both knew that the journey would take its toll on our sanity before it took a toll on our bodies if we did not find something to move toward. As it was, traveling through fog blindly was weighing on the men. The air was getting colder. The fog was getting thicker. We needed more.
“Fine,” I said.
