True to his word, a storm struck the seas not a day later. The sky grew lower, darker, and bleaker. A sharp wind kicked the sea into a boil, and the pilot was forced to deviate from the course to stay perpendicular to the breakers. It only grew worse.
By that evening, the world was black rain. No. Rain implied that it was a steady shower of droplets. This was sheets, buckets, torrents of water poured from the heavens. Just leaning outside the doorway meant getting drenched. The only dry spot was behind several sealed bulkheads, and that was only if you ignored the water sloshing back and forth wherever someone had walked in dripping from the storm.
Cold Snap looked out a small porthole. The water streaming down the glass made it almost impossible to see the sea. It was only the violence of the water outside that he could see anything in the darkness.
It was a wild storm unlike any he had ever seen on the good, old land. It was savage, uncontrolled. Every whitecap was a testament to the power nature held over fragile life. Any ship out there would have to founder or be driven unchecked before the gale.
The only reason the Yellow Rose survived so well was not due to her construction or any more Man-tricks. It was good sailoring. She rode at anchor in a small bay in the lee of an islet. It was a lifeless spit of rock that harbored only pelicans in better times. In this trying time, it was a divine blessing.
There was nothing for the crew to do but to batten down the hatches and ride out the tempest. Every member did their basic duties. Cooking still happened. The engine crew took the opportunity to catch up on their never-ending retrofits and overhauls. The gun crews religiously kept their weapons clean of salt. Other than that, the crew sat around in their berths and whiled away the hours.
In Cold Snap’s case, that meant that he needed to share the cramped space with someone who didn’t think too highly of him at the moment.
“My friend is an idiot. My friend is an idiot! MY FRIEND IS AN IDIOT!” Nebula shouted into his lumpy bedding.
Snap was thankful that because of either the storm or the crew having selective deafness, no one seemed to hear Nebula’s outburst. At the moment, he and his friend were not on the best of terms. That might be understating it a little.
Within an hour of leaving the captain’s cabin, Captain Gideon had made his way to the wheelhouse. He had seen the barometer and felt the shifting weather in his feathers and immediately ordered course shifted to the northeast to make for a small, uninhabited archipelago. The crew, professional and clever as always, turned their bearings thus and put on all steam to make the land before the tempest fell.
It wasn’t his decision that alarmed the crew. It was the uneasy way the captain went about his command. No doubt he had put as best a mask on as he could, but it took more than that to fool his experienced crew. After that, the proverbial dam had a crack in it.
No matter the skill or levelheadedness of a crew, they were still prone to the ancient sailor’s weakness of superstition. Nothing stoked that ancient ember like seeing their captain agitated about something.
Rumors circulated, and by the time the ship dropped anchor in this protective bay, the crew whispered that something may not be quite as imagined. It wasn’t something so understandable as food, water, or coal shortage. Everyone on board knew they had excesses of all three. So what was it?
Cold Snap knew what it was. He had tried to play the captain. He’d tried to use his own sailor’s superstition against him.
“You tried to pretend to be a seer, despite NEVER having seen one. You tried to foogaboo the captain with the most horseapple filled story ever.”
Nebula was no fool. When he heard the mutterings, he paid attention. He didn’t know the captain well, but he recognized discontent when he saw it. While the land-lubbers might say “Where there is smoke, there is fire.”, the Yellow Rose said “Where there is Captain Gideon, there is Cold Snap.”
Nebula knew that whatever troubled their captain, Cold Snap was at the bottom of it. And he was going to badger his friend until he told all.
“Then THAT wasn’t enough. So you had to try start making ‘prophecies’ to cover your own tail!”
At least his friend was keeping his voice down now. If Cold Snap could barely hear his friend’s razor sharp commentary, the crew definitely couldn’t.
Of course, they would see the argument, and using that hive mind peculiar to a sailing crew, would arrive at something close to the truth. It was only a matter of time. Nebula had been the first to piece the puzzle together. That led to him practically cornering his friend and pumping him for every detail.
While Cold Snap slowly pieced together his story, Nebula’s eyes had shrunk to pinpricks, and his breath whistled through his grit teeth. After a minute of this, Cold Snap kept going without needing to be cudgeled into talking and Nebula was practicing aggressive massage therapy on his mattress.
Looking back on it, the idea was beyond ridiculous. Sure, he might expect an imbecile or a drunkard to buy his snake oil story. Captain Gideon? Not a chance.
“It made sense at the time,” Cold Snap weakly protested.
Nebula looked up from his rumpled blanket. Daggers and death danced in his eyes. “Ah. Yes. How could I forget the all-important fact that everything hinged on ‘Huh. Sounds good to me. Hold my cider.’ eh?”
Snap’s ears folded. His face burned in shame. “You done yet?”
“Done?!”
His friend scrambled across the bed and magically pulled Snap’s mane, and the head attached to it, close to his face. “You remember what we said...two days ago?”
“Three,” Snap added automatically.
“Whatever. It’s all about subtlety. Or it was supposed to be. Then you made it about as subtle as a skunk.”
Nebula’s tirade died off to a mutter. Snap stared outside. The dark sea surged angrily. Its white froth barely visible in the dark. Even in this protected anchorage, the ship rocked and swayed. As fast as the rain drained off the deck, the endless torrent replaced it.
He would not want to be on any ship out there right now. If even the Rose dared not tempt fate, then any weaker ship must either find safe anchorage, escape the elemental wrath, or founder.
It made him think of Lilith.
She was another secret among too many secrets. No doubt she was antagonistic to Captain Gideon’s ends. From what he deduced, Captain Gideon did as he did to counter and spite her. It was a most curious relationship between the two indeed.
That wasn’t his only thought. She promised that she would meet the griffon at wherever they were supposed to go. That raised a few peculiar thoughts to add to his troubles.
Where was she right now? If she were to keep her promise, then she had to be somewhere on this sea. That was why he said that nonsense about her trailing Captain Gideon’s wake. That’s how he remembered it at least.
He knew she was coming. Logically, she was on this sea somewhere. However, Captain Gideon was the master of the Yellow Rose. By both his boasting and her own words, there was not another ship like her on the main. So she would be taking a standard sailing vessel to make the rendezvous. Were that the case, then Captain Gideon might as well pull out a chair and have himself a vacation while waiting.
Unless she had something contraption other than the captain’s warship. That would be something well within possibilities for these two. Perhaps she had one that was all engine and no guns?
He shook away his wandering thoughts. Nebula was trying to get his attention again. “We need a backup plan. This ship has a few small rowboats. We can collect some supplies and when we get close to land, we’ll make a run for it. Got it?”
Cold Snap looked outside to the intense storm. He pointed. “You first.”
His friend glowered, and Snap laid against his own bunk. He was so tired. Everything had drained him. All he wanted was some sleep.
One last niggling thought bothered him. Lilith couldn’t know all the details of this contentious cargo at the start of this voyage. She knew exactly what to find in great detail, less the blinky gemstone. She had to learn that somehow. How?
Blackness swam before his eyes. His eyelids drooped, and Nebula’s glowering mumbles faded to nothing. Sleep claimed Cold Snap.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Darkness drifted around him. Rather, he drifted in nothing. There was no light. No sun, stars, or moon. Not a breath of air touched his cheek. Not a speck of dirt touched him. Heat and cold meant nothing here. He was simply adrift.
He did not know how long he drifted in the nothingness.
Then, it was no longer nothing. There was something there in the darkness. Then there was not even darkness. There was light!
He blinked his eyes and felt the first stirrings of a morning breeze. The ground, his familiar and ever faithful earth, lay beneath him. It was wrong. It was gray and lifeless. No green colored it. No birds or beasts claimed it.
That changed
It was hot. Not blisteringly so, or even uncomfortably. It was that temperate sort of heat where everything was warm enough to be delightful. It was the kind of heat that many plants loved without being stressed by the struggles of scorching winds or drought.
That heat was mitigated by the abundant greenery all around him. Shade shifted in the breeze and cast its shadow all across the rich and fertile ground.
Yet still he walked. He knew he searched for something. That something escaped him, but he knew in his heart that he would recognize it when it happened.
He parted brush before him. He passed through clearings rich with grass and flowers. Vines covered with blooms and ripening fruit lay all around him. The very air was filled with the wonderful and competing scents of so many mouthwatering foods.
He walked for some time. His course meandered, but his final bearing remained unwavering. He stepped out of the leafy shade and into a clearing. This one was different. It wanted him. He had found it.
Two trees stood rooted in the dark earth. Both grew vibrant, strong, and towered into the heavens. Their thick leaves didn’t let a spear or dart of sunlight pass, and everything under them was a cool shade.
Each tree bore fruit. Neither had been seen before. He knew that. One held branches thick with heavy purple fruits, their segmented bodies glistening in the dim light. The other held a rather diminutive pink fruit. Each was hardly bigger than a strawberry and shaped like a wide spear tip. These danced lightly on the wind while their purple counterparts barely swayed in time with their branch.
Each of these trees was whole, undamaged, yet he couldn’t fail to recognize them from his dream. Was this them in their beginning?
The purple fruit was high above him. He wished to be taller. The ground shrank away from him as he reared on his hind legs and reached for the tempting fruit. His hand stretched out and with slender, dark fingers, plucked the fruit.
He stared at the hand. He knew it was his, yet had never seen one like it before. Curiosity overwhelmed him. He rolled the hand and wrist around to look in all the details. He knew he was Man. Yet the trash books said nothing like this. Man was not a beast. He was graceful. He was intelligent enough to build civilizations and powerful enough to rip them down.
The sight consumed him. He forgot about his snack, and the forgotten fruit landed with a wet splat by his bare feet. He stared at this new, wondrous body. Marveling at how it moved in ways simultaneously familiar and alien, he forgot all about the world around him. He saw the smooth skin barely glistening with sweat and felt the air ruffle each hair.
Smoke touched his nostrils. He blinked and looked at the cloud growing as if all around him. Pain lanced through his bare legs as fire kissed him. He backed away, stumbling against the second tree. There he saw the source.
His forgotten fruit lay on the ground. Despite looking pleasant and juicy seconds ago, it looked revolting now. It rotted and collapsed on itself. As it did, it burned with incredible heat, torching the grass beside it and setting ablaze greenery at an impossible rate.
The flames spread. Trees became torches, and grass became tinder before it. Before his very eyes, the garden paradise crumbled into embers and ash. Only he and the trees remained untouched.
The fire continued. It burned away all life. The sky grew dark from its smoke. Soon, nothing was left but flames and fumes.
His new body felt the heat all too keenly. It felt like he was being roasted alive. Every breath hurt more than the last. Every breath drew in an agony of sparks and smoke. Every breath came back as a racking cough. His head started pounding, and he felt his vision swirl.
The smoke solidified, becoming those familiar walls and caverns. The fire remained, though the smoke vanished as if blown away by a great wind. Only the two trees remained.
He did not. He still drew breath, but it was a fleeting thing. With his body burned, and his vision going black, death was only waiting for him.
So he lay there for who knew how long. The room filled with the smell of death, the death of everything caused by that one tree. Soon, he would join it.
Something moved in the shadows of his sight. Something was small and green. A leaf danced on the fiery currents. It reflected their light, but was not scorched, even when it passed though them. It descended to him, and he raised himself to touch it.
He had no strength left. He collapsed in new depths of agony. Here, he died.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cold Snap’s eyes jerked open. His breath rasped over his dry lips. All around him, the ship was dark. He looked all around in the darkness. Quiet and peace dominated the ship. Even the storm wasn’t quite so bad.
Slowly, his racing heart dropped to manageable levels. His skin didn’t feel like it was blistering from the heat, and he didn’t feel like coughing out his lungs. He was still alive.
Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, enjoying the taste of fresh air...or as fresh as he could get it when the crew didn’t bathe as often as they probably should.
That dream was different. He’d dreamed of the trees and their stone prison before. He’d seen the fire. Never had he seen them in any other light. He didn’t know what it meant. It would be convenient to say “just a dream”, but he knew that these were anything but.
Nebula snored quietly nearby. Snap glowered at his friend. What he would give to sleep like that again! These nightly nightmares were taking their toll on him. He was always tired now. The nights were never long enough, and the arduous work required to keep the ship running never gave him an opportunity for rest.
And he knew well from experience that he was not going to get any more sleep tonight. He bit back a curse. He just wanted things back the way they were, back at home working with his family and enjoying a quiet life. Would he ever get to enjoy a life like that even if he survived all this?
He had to get up. He had to move. Quietly, he slipped out of his bed, slipped on his saddlebags, and groped his way through the dark corridors. Direction made no difference to him. Only the fact that he was moving meant anything. Having to walk by senses and memory made it that much easier to ignore his own thoughts.
Stairs. He took them. Another hallway. He turned. A door. He nudged it open. He jerked as he realized where he was. It was Captain Gideon’s cabin, and it was unlocked.
“As I said, sir.”
The voice made Cold Snap shrink into the shadows. Someone, the engineer, was inside and talking to the captain.
“The seals have gone out on the Number Two engine. It’s foggin’ the room something terrible. Aye, my crew can fix it. No doubt, but we need to get started on it right away and stay at anchor until fixed.”
“We can’t see to repairs as we are underway? The storm should clear enough in two hours.”
That was Captain Gideon.
“No doubt yer right on the weather, but that means we’d be operating on only one screw. We could do it, but our speed will be cut a mite short.”
“An acceptable trade. Show me the situation. I’ll make all allowances I can to assign helpers to you.”
Hooves and claws thumped against the carpeted floor. Cold Snap cringed and plastered himself into a dark corner an instant before the door opened. The two figures silhouetted by the light, couldn’t see well in the dark corridor. The captain held a satchel tethered to a glowing crystal around his neck and cast a pale white light through the darkness.
Moments later, they were gone. Cold Snap shuddered in relief. He then noticed that the captain’s door was still cracked open. Mr. Horn’s words about side investigations rattled to the forefront of his mind. Two could play at that game, and he shoved the door open and slipped inside.
Captain Gideon’s cabin was much like he’d always seen it. Everything was in its standard state of organized yet slightly disassembled. That would make his snooping, no, his investigation more challenging.
A warm glow suffused the room from lights built into the ceiling. It gave enough to clearly see and search by. That left the real question: where to start?
Better yet: what could he be possibly looking for? Mr. Horn had been curious about the box. By now, Cold Snap was an expert as far as this ship went on that chunk of wood. No. He was after something a little more related to the captain. Lilith? Probably. Man? Almost certainly. But where?
Snap started poking around the captain’s desk, opening and closing drawers except for the one containing the chest. It was sundry stuff. Stationary, pins, bits of string and coins that had not made it back to the captain’s purse. One coin looked a little different than the standard Minotaur stater or even an Equestrian bit.
Snap picked it up out of idle curiosity, but started searching elsewhere. He found the captain’s journal on Man. This was already familiar as he had already reviewed it multiple times. He next found the captain’s logbook, this filled with notes on the ship, its maintenance, the crew, and position. Interesting, but not what he was looking for.
Time ticked by, hours perhaps. He always kept a sharp ear on the world outside the door. Then it occurred to him that if the captain came this way, this was the only door in the hallway. He’d be stuck in here! He redoubled his searching, but kept pulling up dead ends.
The sun was over the horizon now. The storm was fading fast. He’d be missed soon even if the captain didn’t come back. He could feel the ship’s engine thrumming as it built up pressure. Looks like the captain was making his departure even with the loss of the other engine.
He started searching even more hastily. He dashed from desk to book case, from chest to cupboard. He found absolutely nothing.
Was he losing his mind finally? No! The captain was hiding something. He knew it! Only, where would he hide something the rest of the crew shouldn’t know about?
What would Captain Gideon do? He’d spent enough time with the captain, he could make a guess. Cold Snap tried putting himself in the captain’s mind.
It would have to be small. That way it could fit into more places. It would have to be camouflaged. That way if prying eyes did see it, then it would be overlooked as ordinary. It would have to be something “informationally dense”.
It had to be a book, or at least a few pages.
It fit all the criteria. The one problem was that a small book could go just about anywhere.
But it would go in a place that would attract no attention. Where better than a bookshelf?
Snap returned to the books. After a deep breath to calm his nerves, he began browsing the titles. Most were dry, technical sounding books with titles relating to the arcane or the fledgling sciences the captain was so fond of. Their authors ranged from all nations: ponies, griffons, minotaurs, dragons and even names so foreign he had no inkling of how to pronounce them. None of them seemed right.
Snap started browsing the other shelf. Then something caught his eye. The bookcase was built with walnut trim that overlapped on the perimeter of the furniture. What it created was a small cavity on each end where a book could be stored, but not pulled out without removing another book.
On the previous shelf, there was a small book nestled in that hollow. Unless he was looking from a specific angle, he couldn’t see it. It didn’t appear to have a title, and it looked far more worn than the neighboring tomes.
Carefully, Snap worked aside the engineering texts and pulled out the book. It was definitely more worn. He could see scuffs in the binding and smears across the cover. It was soft. Leather.
Flipping through it, he was overwhelmed by the numbers of drawings, notes, and calculations held inside. All of them were in the captain’s clawwriting. This was it. He tucked the notebook in his saddlebag and replaced the books as he found them.
Cold Snap turned to leave before the captain returned to his lair. His eyes swept out over the vast sea.
And the fleet of sails and minotaurian flags bearing down fast on them.