The Ship Beyond Time Read online

  “I’ve been wondering—”

  “Of course you have.”

  “Well, you can’t present me a puzzle and expect me not to try to solve it!” Blake clasped his hands behind his back. His boots were freshly polished; already he looked more like the dapper young gentleman I’d met strolling through downtown Honolulu. “How does it work, Miss Song?”

  “What, exactly?”

  “The Navigation! Is it magic?”

  “I suppose that’s one theory.”

  “And the others?”

  “Wormholes. Alternate universes. Mass energy causing closed timelike curves.” At his look, I added, “I had a classical education, Mr. Hart.” He laughed. The sails hummed overhead, waves whispered against the hull, and my father’s words resurfaced from the day he’d taught me: know where you’re going, let go of where you’re from.

  “We might be traveling between worlds,” I added then. “Or just visiting a time before magic was replaced with science. But I’ve always just thought of it as . . . as Navigation.”

  “Typically, mariners restrict the seas they sail to the usual seven.”

  “Can you be sure?” I adjusted my hands on the wheel. “These maps, these stories—they reach us somehow. From somewhere.”

  “Are you saying Ker-Ys actually existed?”

  “I’m saying it does exist, in some point in time. All stories come from somewhere—from a shared memory or a hope or a history now forgotten. And the peasants Souvestre spoke to definitely believed in it.”

  “Souvestre wrote about morgens and mermaids and man-eating wolves, as well. Do you believe in those too?”

  “I do.” Unbidden, the memory returned of the map of Tahiti and the creature in the water; I suppressed a shudder. Then I gave him a sidelong look. “But you’re no stranger to the fantastical.”

  He rocked a little on his heels, and his hand went once more to his side. How much did he remember about that night in Honolulu, the healing spring, the Hu‘akai Po? Blake’s voice was faraway when he spoke again. “Sounds dangerous.”

  I glanced down at Kashmir once more, remembering his words: Trojans and horses. “It might be.”

  Why did Crowhurst need my assistance? His letter hadn’t exactly been clear on the details. And on closer study, the map had raised questions of its own. The red lines charting Ker-Ys still swam behind my eyes. The paper itself was just that—paper, not parchment or vellum—and it was crisp and new. Crowhurst must have had an older version—the one he’d used to arrive in Ker-Ys in the first place. What had he found when he’d arrived? More importantly, how had he managed to change it?

  Though early tales of a sunken city had begun circulating during the Age of Discovery, the map of Ker-Ys was marked 1637. The version of the myth describing the city’s downfall had first been published that same year. By then, the story had included all the major elements: the princess, the devil, the king. At least—it should have. But Dahut had said there was no king. And of course there was Dahut herself, seeming more wayward than wicked. Was she still fated to open the sea gates and be cursed with a mermaid’s tail? Was she a mythological princess, or just an ordinary girl like me?

  Well. I raked the hair out of my eyes as I steered the black ship toward the edge of the world. Perhaps not so ordinary.

  “What’s changed, Miss Song?” Blake’s voice was soft—only meant for me to hear.

  “What?” I glanced over at him, but he was watching the horizon. “What do you mean?”

  He sighed. “The other night, you were so willing to embrace the inevitable—to bend the knee to history as written. Today you’re steering the ship to a mythic island to try to learn how to alter the past. What changed your mind?”

  I squeezed the handles of the wheel. “You were right. About fighting back.”

  “Even if you’ll fail?”

  “I won’t fail.” The words came out low, fierce—and my eyes went back to Kashmir. Blake cocked his head; in the silence between us, I could practically hear his thoughts.

  “I see.”

  Past the buoys at the mouth of the river, the fog crept up, floating, shimmering like a veil. The mist was cool, pleasant after the briny humidity of the city; it condensed on the warm bronze wheel and smelled faintly of honey.

  Beside me, Blake took a deep breath of the foggy air. “Is this the Margins, Miss Song?”

  I only nodded, putting all thoughts of New York behind me, shedding the heat, the horns, the crush of humanity. Ahead, the answers to my questions lay just beyond the horizon—all I had to do was get us there safely. The deck of the ship began to roll, but I’d roped in too—we all had. This was, after all, a fairy-tale map as well as the Mer d’Iroise; I’d expected the waves to rise. But the temperature was dropping as well. Even in the thick of the fog I could see my breath turn to crystal. Goose bumps flashed across my skin like a school of little fish. I shivered; I’d changed shorts for trousers, but my arms were still bare.

  Blake rubbed his hands together. “Is Navigation always so cold?”

  I shook my head. “It must be winter there.”

  “Winter.” He shook his head, wondering. “I’ve only ever heard stories.”

  “Let’s hope the weather is the most singular thing you see,” I said. Then the ship surged forward with a current and the boom pulled at the rigging; I gave the wheel a quarter turn. The pale fog swirled around us, interminable and strange. As the wind rose, it carried notes of a song to my ears—distantly familiar—and snatched them away almost as quickly. I squinted up to see if it was Rotgut, but the crow’s nest was lost in the mist. Besides, it didn’t sound like his voice—it was too airy, too breathless. I bit my lip as it came again: above the roar and shush of the waves, a high voice, clear, singing a sad sea shanty.

  “Go down and put on a coat, Blake.”

  “I’m quite hardy—”

  “I need you out of the way.”

  His eyebrows went up at my tone, and for a moment, I wondered if he would disobey—and what I would do if he did. But the ship was under my command, and all souls aboard were too. I couldn’t let him argue, not now. He must have seen it on my face, because he stepped down the stairs toward the hatch. I was briefly grateful for the silence, but alone on the quarterdeck, the white expanse of fog made me feel very small.

  The crew moved on the deck like dark wraiths. The wind intensified, thrumming in the rat lines and snapping at the sails, and the ship groaned as the mast creaked. My heart hammered in my chest as the memory of our last journey crept into my head—the thick mists, the lightning, and the black tentacle dragging Kash overboard.

  My hands were slick on the wheel. What had I been thinking, taking the helm without Slate to guide me? My anger at him had gotten the better of me—or perhaps it was my hubris. Was I a fool to try to cheat fate? I sought Kashmir through the fog. What if he’d been right? What if this was how I lost him?

  Beneath my feet, the Temptation seesawed. The ship climbed a mountainous wave, then dipped down so sharply I was sure that, but for the mist, I’d be looking at the bottom of the sea. Kash was fairly dancing on the deck below—beside him, Bee was hauling in the lines on the foresail. She glanced back at me, her wide eyes bright in the dark. I could almost hear her voice in the look she gave me: you cannot flinch.

  They’d done this before—and so had I. I tore my eyes away from the crew and pinned them to the uncertain horizon.

  Squinting into the fog off the prow, I redrew the map in the space behind my eyes: the crescent of the island and the slip of a protected bay, all encircled by the thick seawalls. Ker-Ys, the most beautiful city in France—a kingdom without a king. I filled my mind with the myth I knew and the map I’d studied, and I did not search for a glimpse of our destination. Rather, I waited. I knew, without doubt, that the city was there.

  This was the trick of Navigation—the most difficult part: the belief, the unflinching faith. And it was so clear in my head that I could not pinpoint the moment when it appe
ared through the shifting mist off the prow, but in the same way as dawn turns to day, there it was.

  “Land!” Rotgut sang out from the crow’s nest. The icy fog did not lift so much as thin in the golden light of morning. The sun was burning cold in the east, sparkling through the crystalline air and silhouetting the spires of Ker-Ys.

  There, on the horizon: a sugarplum city, rising up from the silvery waves like a confection on a tray. The compact little town of slate roofs and Gothic steeples surrounded an elegant castle embroidered with stone carved like lace. The towers and turrets, cottages and cobbled streets—all were set inside the sun-gilded granite seawalls like a bezel of rough crystal, and around the wall, waves washed white as they broke on the stone.

  Blake came back above, wearing a long coat of felted wool; when he glanced off the prow toward the city, I could hear his intake of breath.

  “It looks like something out of a fairy tale,” he said softly.

  “Well.” Pride bloomed in my chest; automatically, I glanced over my shoulder, looking for my father, before I realized he was not on deck. I took a deep breath and turned back toward the city on the horizon. “It is.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  We were out of the mist of the Margins, but the winter sun did little to warm us, and the wind purled in fitful gusts, pressing through my thin shirt as though it were made of gauze. Through chattering teeth, I called for the crew to spell off for warmer gear. Bee went below first, returning with an extra coat for Rotgut; Kash went next, bringing me my good red cloak.

  “Here, Captain,” he said, settling the heavy velvet around my shoulders as I held the wheel.

  I blinked at the honorific. “Thank you, Kash.”

  He smiled, but only a little. Then he jogged back to the main deck as I turned the rudder to meet a current that drew us toward Ker-Ys on a path laced with creamy foam.

  The city seemed to float on the white waves, stately: a castle in the clouds. Crowhurst was there, and so were the answers I needed. As we approached the island, my heart was beating like an oarsman’s drum. But I kept a weather eye as Kash and Bee adjusted the sails to catch the capricious wind. It puffed in the sheets and scuffed the whitecaps, pushing us unsteadily east as the ship rocked on the rolling gray. The restless seas of the Margins had given way to the tumultuous Mer d’Iroise.

  Here, locals claimed the tides rose at the speed of a galloping horse, the high water climbing fifty feet above the lurking rocks of low tide. Currents raced through the English Channel, harsh storms raked the coast, and patches of pale gray water hinted at rocky reefs under the shifting surface.

  Tall menhir jutted out of the swirling water; we passed a pile of rock where the bones of old shipwrecks glittered under a crust of salt. The north side of the island was thick with twisted trees; nesting in them were creatures I mistook for cormorants until we came closer and I saw they were guivres. Souvestre had mentioned them too—a local sort of dragonlet that made a home near bodies of water.

  The guivres circled out over the sea to fish, coasting on wings flung wide, until they folded like knives and tipped down into the sea. I smiled to see them emerging victorious, silver fish twisting in their jaws; they reminded me of Swag, the little sea dragon that had once belonged to both me and my mother.

  The tide continued falling as we neared the island. The waves licked up the stones; pulling back, they revealed seaweed like glossy mounds of jade at the base of the wall. We came about to the south, where the bronze doors protected the little harbor. They were enormous, easily three feet thick and fifty feet tall, though the dark algal stain of the high- water mark was only a few feet from the top.

  As we waited, the bells began to toll the changing tides—the fabled bells of Ker-Ys. A deep rumble vibrated through the deck of the ship, and little whirlpools formed in the foam at the base of the wall as the gates began to roll open.

  Would Crowhurst meet us at the dock? It was only midmorning, and the island was small—even if I had to seek him out, I could certainly find him before evening. I leaned forward, eager to enter the harbor, but as the gates slid back, a little flotilla of fishing boats splashed out into the open water. They swarmed around us like goslings around a swan, slow and clumsy; in their bellies, red water sloshed from buckets of chum.

  Rotgut called down from the crow’s nest. “What do you catch in these waters?”

  An oarsman squinted back with hard eyes in a weathered face. “Everything we can.”

  The fishing boats swept toward deeper water as we continued into the harbor. I searched the wharf for a glimpse of Crowhurst, but he was not there. Still, there was activity aboard a sleek corvette docked at the pier—the other tall ship in harbor.

  Was this his vessel? I scanned her deck, but I did not see him at the helm or among the busy crew. They hopped and hefted, making ready to sail. The corvette was much bigger than the Temptation, maybe a hundred twenty feet at the waterline, but built with grace. Though it had been worn by the water and scraped by some sort of blade, the name Santé was barely visible in peeling paint along her prow, and her striped sails gave her a devil-may-care appearance, countered by the rotting head hanging in a net from the tip of her bowsprit.

  I narrowed my eyes. This was the golden age of piracy, and corsairs schooled like sharks between San Malo and the Barbary Coasts. But the prim harbormaster directed us to a berth beside the corvette, and as we pulled up to the pier, her captain hailed us.

  “Ho, Temptation!” She was a tall woman in her twenties, with freckled cheeks and wild curls barely contained by a French cocked hat. Her crew swarmed around her, but she stood still, one hand up, the breeze toying with the ostrich feathers in her cap.

  My own crew set to making fast—Kash showing Blake how to take in the sails, and Rotgut setting out the gangplank and tying us to the dock. I raised my hand in response, thinking it was only courtesy, but the woman sauntered to the rail.

  “I know this ship!” Her hazel eyes glittered. “But not her captain.”

  My brows went up. I did not recognize her or her vessel—so when had she seen the Temptation? Bee came to the rail before I could ask. “Gwen.” Bee’s smile was guarded. “How long has it been?”

  “Two years? Three?”

  “Right.” Bee gave me a significant look. “Ribat, in 1745.”

  I blinked. The map of Ker-Ys had been marked 1637.

  Was the map I’d gotten from Dahut misdated? This wouldn’t be the first time. But no—the harbormaster’s tidy outfit had included a high wig and heels on his boots; by the eighteenth century, those fashions had gone by the wayside. I peered at Gwen. Could she be a Navigator as well? Slate had said he’d never met another. But if not, how had she gotten from her own time to a mythical island in seventeenth-century France? I couldn’t ask her—at least not directly. And she had noticed my scrutiny, meeting it with her own.

  “Things have changed since last I saw the black ship.” Gwen leaned over the rail to size me up. “Hullo, little chicken. Are you my replacement?”

  “You were never captain of the Temptation,” I said.

  She smiled without humor. “Neither are you. Bee, tell me she lies,” she cried then, pushing back from the rail, sweeping off her hat, and slapping it against her thigh. “Tell me he’s not dead!”

  The anguish in her voice shocked me, but before I could form the words to reassure her, Slate’s rusty voice preceded him out of his cabin.

  “Dead?” The door creaked open, and he stood, stooped, on the threshold, squinting at the light. He wore no shirt, though he didn’t seem to feel the cold, and his tattoos looked like bruises on the pale skin of his arms. “Not yet.”

  “Slate!” Gwen’s eyes went wide with glee. Leaping onto her ship’s rail, she teetered on the edge for a moment, then hopped down, her hobnailed boots ringing on our deck as she pelted toward my father. But she faltered when she got close; one hand shot out, stopping inches from Slate’s haggard face. “What happened to you?”

  �
��Time.” At his answer, her brow furrowed, but Slate turned his head, staring at our surroundings with incurious eyes. “Where the hell are we, Nixie?”

  “I left the map on your desk,” I told him, but Gwen interrupted.

  “They call the place Ville d’Ys, but I’m marking it a vigia. I recommend you do the same.”

  Vigia—a term on maps that meant to keep close watch for danger. The sort of place marked HERE ARE DRAGONS BORN. I frowned. “Why’s that?”

  Gwen’s eyes gleamed under the brim of her hat. “Strange fish in the water. You should turn back.”

  Slate half shrugged. “I’m not a fisherman.”

  “There’s something weird about this place,” she insisted. “Uncanny. We left the Port of London yesterday morning, and we were in harbor by first watch. My ship is fast, but not that fast. And this morning, my whole crew reported dreaming the same dream. I’ll tell you this,” she said, leaning closer, as though afraid to say the words too loud. “I’ve been on this route since I weren’t no older than your new girl, and I never saw this place until last night.”

  I glanced at Slate, my eyes round. Was Gwen a Navigator after all? But my father didn’t even seem curious. “Did you come through a fog?” I asked her.

  “A fog? No. It was a storm.” She laughed without joy and gave Slate a sidelong look. “Should have known better than to let a strange man handle my ship.”

  “Someone else took the helm?” My heart quickened. “Was his name Crowhurst, by any chance?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. His coin did most of his talking. Mark me, leave while the gate’s open and the weather’s clear. This place is cursed.”

  “You can’t leave without him,” I said quickly.

  She turned back, incredulous. “Beg pardon?”