The content of this page is © copyright Stephen Deas 2001 and is used here with permission.
It may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the permission of the author.

Previous Story   Story Index   Next Story

The Silver Sea. I left my armies and mages to manage the ruined kingdom of Icantoka and its rebellious sorcerers as best they could and left alone, armed with my sword, my wits, a rack of spells and a sure confidence. But, as I discovered, man cannot be sustained by sorcery alone.

My horse had died at last, and its failed flesh gave brief respite from the endless summonings of sorcerous energy that had once seemed so potent, yet now gave neither strength nor will. I had long since discovered a strange resolve within myself to cross the Silver Sea or die in the attempt, even though, perhaps, I might yet turn back and reach Icantoka before my failing sorcery could no longer support my weakening body. So in what shade I could summon, I carved the flesh from its bones, ate my fill, and carried with me what I could. I had travelled for a week, and my eyes ached to see a distraction, anything except the blinding gleam of the sun from the endless silver plain. Once or twice, I thought I saw a shape, a haze, an outline, far in the distance, but I had no wizardry to spare from sustaining myself to see more clearly. Twice, though, I had encountered strange depressions in the sand, and stopped to ponder their meaning. Creatures, living here? In such a place?

And then, when my horse-flesh was almost gone, I found a line in the sand, crossing my path at a shallow angle. Two broad gashes, not deep, slashed across the desert, side by side, running exactly parallel.

I could not ignore such a sign. Made by man or some wild thing, I didn't care. Either way, they would have food and water, and I would find a way to make them share these with me.

I don't remember how long I followed this path, or how, at last, my sorcery failed. Or how long I lay dying in the sun, sprawled between these two trails, the great sorcerer-king, reduced to nothing. Days, I think. Weeks, perhaps. I have some images which may be memories, or may be hallucinations, or may be something I dreamed or made up later. I remember a shadow falling over me, blacking out the sun, and thinking this must be death at last, my time to shed this cursed body and move to another. And in my fevered state, thinking, perhaps, the curse would have its way with me, and I would lie here for years, skin and bones and nothing more, too weak to move, yet unable to die. I remember the shadow being a large, angular creature with a vast gaping maw, wide enough to swallow me whole without even realising it had done so, and wondering if the curse could pass on to such a creature, or whether it would remain, and I would lie, undigested within the creature's gullet for the rest of my life.

I remember arms picking me up. I remember voices. Strange voices, with an accent so think I could understand only a few words. And in a final flash of clarity, I remembered, once, a story concerning the Sailors of the Silver Sea.

I awoke in a cool, dim room, smelling of water, and thought at first I must be delirious, until I stirred and heard a voice, asking me some question I didn't understand.

I gasped something, my throat too dry, my lips too cracked to form the words I had in mind to say. Which would have been to ask where I was, what had happened to me, and had these people heard of a place called the Well of Shadow. But instead, all I achieved was a thin groan, so weak that even a old woman lying in her deathbed would have been ashamed of it.

The voice spoke again, and I recognised more of the words this time. A girl's voice, I decided. Offering me water. But when I tried to move, I found I could barely lift an arm, while my eyes and mouth seemed glued shut. I felt a moist finger rub against my lips; a more welcome and beautiful sensation I couldn't imagine, and so by this gradual process, I was eventually able to open my mouth and feel the first trickle of water run down inside me, soaking into the skin of my mouth before even reaching my throat.

Able to speak now, I groaned. "Who are you?"

Again, the accented reply contained words unfamiliar to me, but gradually, as our conversation progressed, I grew to understand this strange dialect.

"My name is Kol," said the girl, except by then I was able to open my eyes, and see quite clearly that this was a young boy of no more than eight years.

"I thank you, Kol, for your water. Where am I?"

"This is the warcraft Tangne."

At once I understood. What I had seen looming over me had not been some monstrous creature, but a sailing ship, a catamaran, a ship of the Silver Sea.

"You sail the sands?"

"Yes."

"But there is no wind in the Silver Sea."

The boy laughed. "Wind? Why would we need wind to sail?"

I thought I had an answer for him, but instead struggled to rise. And found myself still to weak.

"Why are you alive?" asked Kol.

"Because I want to be," I said.

He looked at me with a strange wonder. "Mostly people die when the death-pirates come. And then they go with them."

"I do not know of these death-pirates. Is this some word you give to the sun and the sand? I'm sure most men would perish quickly enough if left to them."

The boy uttered a quick, nervous laugh. "The sun and the sand are the sun and the sand. The death-pirates are the death-pirates. They attacked you."

"I have no memory of being attacked."

Kol gave his nervous laugh again. "I have to go now. I will tell them you are alive. You talk with strange words."

And with that, the boy was gone and I was left alone with my thoughts.

The Sailors of the Silver Sea nursed me slowly back to life, and in those few days while my strength returned, I learned of their way of life, how their sand-ships followed strange and shifting currents deep within the earth, how they were made from the Wyrwood, which lifted them almost off the ground. So light and sleek were their hulls that, even fully laden, they could be pushed through the sand by a single strong pair of hands. The leader of the sailors, on this vessel at least, introduced himself as Lostra, and it was from him I learned of the death-pirates. I had told him who I was, sparing no detail, but the Silver Sailors had heard of Icantoka in myth alone, and of the other lands North of the Silver Sands, they knew nothing. They told me they never sailed to the North because the earth-currents flowed predominately to the South, and the Wyrwood also came from the South. I asked them how they lived in such a wilderness, and they told me they gathered the sands and traded them for food and water. They took me to the prow of their ship as it sailed and pointed to pockets of sand, whose silver colour was, perhaps, with a squint, a shade different from the sands around it. And this sand, they told me, could be mixed into a potion which would prolong life. They told me of a place called the Bone Empire, where they could sell such sand for a vast price, and this was how they lived, how they had always lived, how they always would. Until the death-pirates.

They came, Lostra told me, from under the sand, burrowing up underneath a ship as she harvested the Silver Sand. These, I realised as he talked, were the depressions I had seen in the sands, which told me they at least appeared for other reasons as well.

They came up, they attacked ships with no mercy, destroying and killing, and then leaving. At first the Silver Sailors had thought they came to steal the sand, but the wrecks found had their cargoes intact. All that was missing was their crew. No one had ever survived such an attack, and so Lostra ad his crew had been most surprised to find me in their path, dying in the sand. They had hoped, he said, that I would be able to give them some news, some insight on the reason for these attacks, and, perhaps, some way in which the death- pirates might be fought. The Silver Sailors, he explained, were not a warrior people. They had tried hiring mercenaries from the Bone Empire, but after a week in the desert, they had turned their swords on the Sailors and demanded to be returned to their homes.

Of the Well of Shadow, they knew nothing.

"I am sorry," said Lostra, one evening, as we stared together at the stars - many of which I had never seen before.

"For what?" I asked him.

"We have saved your life, yet perhaps only for a worse fate to befall you."

"I am grateful for your help. Without it, I have no doubt I should have perished under the sun." Though I remembered the curse, and shuddered at the thought of an even worse fate.

"Still, perhaps you would have preferred to die in such a way."

"I have been cursed," I told him. "I am not so sure I can die so easily."

Lostra seemed not to hear. "We are here to hunt the pirates," he said sadly. "We have been chosen by our people. The best fighters we have to offer, which, I am sorry to say, is not much. I am sure we must seem a pitiful rabble to such a warrior as yourself."

I said nothing. In truth, were we to meet these pirates, I had little hope for victory from the Silver Sailors. Their weapons were crude, simple swords and spears crafted by a dullard who knew nothing of his trade, and the sailors carried them awkwardly, held them with clumsy hands, seemed unsure of what they should do with such things.

"You say you are a great king. If your army was here, I am sure these pirates would be no match for them."

"I have no doubt of it. But my army is far away. I would offer their swords to you in gratitude for your kindness, but how would you carry them here? our ship has room for only a few dozen at most, and such space as there is, is already taken."

"Very true." He sighed and shook his head sadly.

"I will teach you how to fight," I said. "It will pass the time for me and give you some better chance should you meet these pirates."

"Your offer is a generous one, and gratefully received, But I can see your thoughts. Even with such aid, we will not prevail."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have not seen these pirates, so I cannot say."

"I have heard they are not men at all, but the shrivelled remains of men. The enslaved souls of those who have already fallen before them. With every battle we lose, they grow stronger."

"Then you must not lose any battles."

Lostra shook his head. "This is the fate I fear for you, my friend. I would take you directly to the Bone Empire, and spare you this, but I am sworn to my duty. Perhaps the currents will take us to the silver shores, or perhaps not."

"I understand your oath. My sword and I will assist you as best they can for as long as we travel together."

What else could I say? How would I not defend myself, if attacked. "In truth, Lostra, the prospect of death in battle has much greater appeal than death beneath the fire of the sun."

For fourteen days, I sailed with the Silver Sailors, my strength returning in both body and will. From time to time, I considered whether I should seize their ship and turn it towards my own quest. I had no doubt I could easily defeat so few, so poorly prepared as they were, but I stayed my impatience. If I were to do so, I had no knowledge as to how I might pilot their vessel, and much as I watched Lostra navigate and man the helm, I gained no clue as to the means by which their ship moved. I asked him about these shifting currents under the earth that carried them along, and he only shrugged. "None of us understand them," he said. "We learn to ride them, but to become a helmsman takes many years of patient practice." For all my sorcery, I could learn nothing more. The mysteries of the Earth currents concealed themselves too well.

So I sailed, hoping sometimes that we might see the distant glimmer of land on the horizon, of hills and mountains and trees and cities, anything to break up the monotony of the glaring silver sea. And sometimes hoping we might see the prow of some dark ship, nosing its way from under the sands. I remembered the sorcerer in green and black, the Well of Shadow, and wondered if these pirates may know something more than Lostra and the Silver Sailors.

The ship shuddered and seemed to slew from her course. In all the days upon her, I had never known Lostra's skill to fail him. I was on my feet and beside him.

"We've hit something," he said, and there was doom in his eyes. "They've found us."

"Then rally your men, and quickly." We had talked about this, among other things. Lostra, for all his skill with the helm, knew nothing of war. I began to ring the bell we had placed by the helm. The sailors on the deck responded at once, dropping whatever they held and grabbing the nearest weapon they could find, then rushing to our side. From below decks, all we heard were screams.

"They are quick," I said.

"Half my sailors, lost already," groaned Lostra. And indeed, as he spoke, some of his crew began to emerge, although I could barely recognise them. The skin had shrunken from their face, stretched taut over the bone. Their arms and legs were reduced to something skeletal, and while they moved with quick and evil purpose, their eyes were dull and dead. Some carried the crude swords Lostra had found for them, others came with clubs, still others with nothing more than crooked clawed hands.

"We are doomed," wailed a still-living sailor, who turned and ran and hurled himself from the stern of the ship and into the burning sands. In a moment, the other sailors were gone, leaving Lostra and I to face the enemy alone.

"I would run too," said Lostra, "but I have glanced over the side, and I see there are more of them don there. I apologise, friend Skyrie, for bringing this death upon you."

"We shall see," I replied, and leapt into the advancing ranks of what had once been Lostra's crew. I felt almost joyful to be strong again, to feel the blood flowing in my arms as I slashed and parried and cut. Whatever these creatures were, they were no match for a true soldier, and I had cut down three or four of them before I realised those I had felled would stumble, fall, then pick themselves up again and return to the fight, a dark black blood barely oozing from their wound. I heard Lostra wail in fear behind me, and dived back to the helm, where he still stood, quaking with fright.

"They seem difficult to kill," I said.

"They are already dead," he replied, pointing, and I saw more shadows of men emerge from the lower decks, this time with the skin peeling from their faces and arms to show the white bone and dry sinew beneath.

"I will do what I can," I told him. "Everything dies. Even that which has died once already," though I spoke these words for the comfort of both of us, and as they closed upon us, I threw myself among them again, seeking their arms and legs, severing hands and heads. Their lack of strength or skill, however, was made up by their numbers, and I felt blow after blow glance from my armour as I stepped aside too late, or parried too slowly. And though one by one I smashed them, slowly they forced me back.

"You may have me, but you will not have my ship," I heard cried from the stern, an saw Lostra, fending back two or three of the creatures with a flaming torch. One of the creatures stepped away too slowly, and as the flames touched it, it screamed a terrible scream, and fire burst all over it, consuming both flesh and bone with eager greed. I ducked and crouched and rolled across the deck to meet him.

"You have saved us," I said. "Quickly, give me the brand."

He did as I asked, and as the skeletal hordes swarmed upon us, I darted among them and set a few alight. These ones screamed and began to run in circles, blind, flailing their limbs and catching others of their kind with tongues of flame, who burned in their turn. Before long, the death pirates were nothing but ash, while Lostra's ship burned around us.

"We have defeated them," I said to him, observing the gloom in his face.

"Aye. But our ship is lost, and without it we will both be lost to the desert."

"Then we had better find the vessel that moves beneath the sand and brought these creatures here and make it ours."

I ran across the burning deck, Lostra close on my heels, and down, into the dark bowels of the ship, where smoke already began to clog the air. In the gloom, I saw shadows move, but none approached us, perhaps afraid of the torches we carried, or perhaps just that - shadows.

"I have seen the wrecks they leave behind," said Lostra. "They will come from the middle of the underbelly. We always find their hole there."

"They bore into your ships from beneath?"

"So it seems."

We ran down, eyes watering from the smoke, shadows dancing ever faster around the edges of our vision, until we reached the underbelly, and saw the torn wood, ripped apart by great steel blades.

"What is this thing?" asked Lostra.

"As to its manner of propulsion, I have no idea, but as to its use, it is the way for us to escape this burning wreck. And perhaps for you to wreak some revenge on these creatures."

"And a means for you to continue your quest, friend Skyrie."

"Aye. And that." Already I knew I would not abandon Lostra so soon. "But these creatures, or the sorcerers behind them, had a power I had never seen. I would have that."

"Have a care what you search for, friend Skyrie."

How many times would I hear that warning? I brushed the words aside, and climbed across the wrecked wood to where the blades from the pirate craft had torn their entrance. The darkness down below was complete, so solid a thing that the light from our torches seemed to quail before it.

"They are demons from the under-earth," whispered Lostra. "They bring their darkness with them."

"I have seen this before. It is simple sorcery." Later I would ask of this Under-Earth. Every new journey I took, I would hear of new lands, and the realm of Xanusia grew ever larger.

Still. I moment's focus of the mind, and the sorcerous darkness was gone. More of the death-creatures, mere bone and sinew cringed before our light, and fled as I dived into the hole.

"See, they fear us now. When you return to your people with the story of this day, these creatures will no longer be a plague for you." And I sprang forwards, catching one of the skeletal creatures with my torch, whereupon it burst into flames.

"This craft is made of metal. How does it navigate the earth-currents?" said Lostra. Knowing nothing of these currents, I made no reply, intent on chasing down the last of these creature and bringing them to their final end. So intent, in fact, that I barely saw the man who appeared in the shadows behind them, and hurled from his fingers a bolt of dark light. Instinct alone threw me aside, and the bolt struck the steel wall behind my head, corroding it into brittle powder.

"Curse you, crimson inquisitor," he cried, and urged his skeletal minions upon us, while preparing to hurl another of his sickly blasts.

I scythed the skeletons down. "You know me?"

"Aye." A second blast - I picked up one of the skeleton creatures as a shield, and its bones crumbled to dust in my hands.

"And how is that?" The skeletons were all but gone now. He would not have time for a third attempt.

"We all know of you, rapist and murderer."

He raised his hand for a final strike, too late and too slow, for I was upon him; yet, at the last minute, as I stepped aside and into him, he turned the bolt upon himself. Darkness poured from his fingers and enshrouded his head, seeming for a moment to crawl and writhe like a living thing. And then he fell, a headless body to the ground.

Lostra stared at the body. "He knew you."

"So it seems."

"How is this?"

"I cannot answer. I do not know."

He paused. "Is it true what he said? Are you guilty of such crimes?"

I stared Lostra in the eye, and watched him fail before me. "Yes," I said softly. "I am guilty."

Death, of course, is both an end and a beginning. When the body is killed, the soul moves on, finds another host of flesh to bear it. A cunning sorcerer, I have found, might trap that soul for a while and question it, although its memories fade and it becomes quite useless in an unfortunately short time. The sorcerer passed on quickly, to some new life of no concern to me, but before he faded, I found one thing. The source of his power. The Well of Shadows.

I learned nothing as to how he knew me.

The content of this page is © copyright Stephen Deas 2001 and is used here with permission.
It may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the permission of the author.