With every creak­ing yaw, the lantern swung on its hook. Its glow played over the Cap­tain’s pock­marked cheeks, slipped through scarred div­ots and crin­kled crow’s feet. He sat, chin tucked to scruffy neck. His breath­ing matched the rhyth­mic slosh of waves.

Across the table, there was a sigh. “We could try a sun­ward head­ing, Sir. The Dorn­dal­low method,” said the Chief Offi­cer, cau­tious­ly, run­ning her fin­ger over a stained map. *

The Cap­tain grunt­ed, blinked his greasy eyes. “No use.”

“Why?”

“We’ve no time. Down to a week’s rations. Dorn­dal­low takes at least two.”

“We must try some­thing,” said the CO, run­ning a hand through stringy hair. “The crew are row­dy and half hope­less, con­vinced we’ve no plan.”

The cap­tain’s lips crin­kled. He rubbed a thumb over part of the map, a west­ern stretch of sea. There, wrig­gling in inked waves, was a tiny sea ser­pent. Beside was penned a phrase: Here there be mon­sters. He tapped it, hummed idly.

“Aye, we shall,” he said, not meet­ing her gaze. He chewed his lip. “You ever been lost a’sea before, Petu­nia?”

“No, Sir. Hoped I nev­er would.”

“I have.”

The CO stut­tered a moment. “You man­aged to become un-lost?”

“Aye. I did return to the shore of Nören.” **

There was a brief silence. Petu­ni­a’s eyes flick­ered over the Cap­tain’s face, looked for a response. 

“How?” she said, anx­ious.

“Don’ bear repeatin’.”

“Why?”

The cap­tain lift­ed his chin, tapped a fin­ger at his neck. The CO frowned, put a hand to her own throat, to the pen­dant which hung there on a sil­ver chain. A tiny lance with a five-point­ed head, like a star. † She looked at the man, brow knit­ted.

“Tale a faith like yours would­n’t abide,” said the cap­tain.

“What tale can be so awful?”

“Well,” said the pock­marked man. “Sup­pose there’s no hurt in tellin’.” He pulled a dark grin, showed mud­dy teeth. “Since I reck­on your Lord can’t hear us, here. I’ll tell.” 

He rose from the table, went to a lit­tle round port in the hull. Out­side swayed a field of stars. A navy field with no hori­zon; only dots of white. Reflect­ed, gob­bled up by the hun­gry sea. 

“We was a hun­dred-six­ty days afloat,” he said. “A whaler. Big ship. Sail­ing low with a fat load of oil in our bel­ly. As we’d been gone so long, we’d drunk up all the liquor.” He grinned again. “And we mor­tal men and women was spoil­ing to wet our tongues and respec­tive nobs on some­thin’ tha’ weren’t water and each oth­er.”

“So,” he con­tin­ued, rais­ing an eye­brow. “The helms­man con­cocts some course to get us home a week ear­ly. We jump at it. O’ course, tha’s the mis­take. You know a boat don’t just go plot­tin’ new routes amids’ the Isles.”

Petu­nia watched her Cap­tain lean an arm above the port­hole, shut his eyes to the sway­ing blue night. “Tha’ mis­take brought us into a fog. Thick as smog off a burn­ing boot. Last­ed months and more. By the end, we’d grown sick and wily. Lots had just dis­ap­peared. They’d been hearin’ songs in the fog. Sirens.”

The man scratched his scruff, curled his lip. “And we tried every­thin’ to gain our bearin’, but stars just weren’t the same. Not like these, but no more help­ful,” he said, wav­ing a hand at the hole. “Pink and winkin’ stars, we had. Too-close stars. The kind to stare back if you payed ’em a glance.”   

“Tried the Dorn­dal­low and every­thin’ else. Just got sick­er off blub­ber and the sight o’ emp­ty water.”

He trailed off. Petu­nia shift­ed where she sat, wait­ed for him to con­tin­ue. “How,” she start­ed. “How did you get back, in the end?”

“There was a man,” said the Cap­tain. “Said he knew a way. Odd fel­low. Pret­ty and pale, ‘spite the sun. Black eyes. Only ashore did I come to fig­ure he was an älf.” He shook his head. “No right human could know what he told us, see. He gath­ered a lot of us down in the hold, those who he thought’d lis­ten, made a propo­si­tion.”

At this, he spoke dire­ly. “Pro­posed we make an offerin’ to the sea. In exchange for a way home.”

“What kind of offer­ing?” said Petu­nia.

The Cap­tain fixed her with his grease-grey eyes. “Flesh. Man’s flesh,” he said, soft. “Tweren’t hard to con­vince us, at tha’ point, for it weren’t to be any of ours.”

“Whose?” whis­pered Petu­nia.

“A cer­tain fel­low from Cor­voy. He were so sur­prised when we pulled him from his ham­mock.” The Cap­tain chuck­led, stopped sud­den­ly. “We was so anx­ious for home, we had­n’t a hes­i­ta­tion when the älf told us to gut him. Black-eye crea­ture strung him from a whalin’ line, watched sirens gath­er round. Sirens, just like on the rocks at Ponte Godot. All bare and beau­ti­ful with pad­dle-legs. Still remem­ber how they fed.”

“That älf talked with them. Dun­no what words they had, but I fig­ure they gave him a course, for we sight­ed the red shore of Maples with­in a month.”

For a small moment, there was silence, but for the creak of the lantern sway­ing on its hook.

Petu­ni­a’s lips round­ed, as if to speak. She stut­tered, frowned, tried again. “But, why the man from Cor­voy?”

The Cap­tain took three steps. Light from the lamp slid off his marred face. He stopped behind Petu­nia, face in shad­ow. He placed a hand on the C.O.‘s shoul­der, squeezed. The woman tensed.

“You see, the älf was par­tic­u­lar in his offer­ing, for sirens pre­fer a faith­ful man. Reli­gion does some­thin’ to the blood.” Anoth­er hand joined the first. 

“And he were the only child o’ faith aboard.” One hand drift­ed, slid over stringy hair, sil­ver chain, clam­my neck.

Petu­nia twitched, stiff­ened as cold dig­its plucked the pen­dant from her breast­bone. She breathed shal­low as they fin­gered the lit­tle star, watched it flash in the lantern light. The Cap­tain scoffed, let the thing fall. He clapped Petu­ni­a’s shoul­der, stepped away.

“I’m off to gath­er the crew.” He took the lantern from its hook, unlatched the cab­in door. The light van­ished. The lock clicked behind. 

Petu­nia sat alone, in the qui­et and the dark, save for the rush and glit­ter of the hun­gry sea.

Sorah star­tled awake. Flail­ing a moment, she twist­ed, turned to sit in her ham­mock. She part­ed a cur­tain of dread­locks, peered about. 

The sleep­ing hold was void of life. A dozen knit ham­mocks swayed to the sea’s lull, emp­ty. Cloth­ing and rem­nants of a meal were scat­tered about, aban­doned. Above, the hatch was open. Sweet breeze played through the bel­ly of the ship.

“He-” choked Sorah, attempt­ing to speak. She heaved. A clot of gunk freed itself from her throat. “Hel­lo?” she man­aged, weak­ly. Not a response met her ear.

Groan­ing, the sailor touched thin, tan feet to the plank­ing. She put her weight on them, swayed. Veins and bone stood out from those wob­bling limbs. A soft lay­er of pale, white fluff clung to them. Sorah rubbed at the stuff, crin­kled her nose in con­fu­sion. Her hands were the same; near-ema­ci­at­ed and cov­ered in some rot. “Hel­lo?” she tried again.

She tried a few steps, unsteady. A tin bowl bumped her feet, filled with green and black mould. She crossed to the hatch lad­der, peered up. A cloud­less, aqua­ma­rine sky hung close beyond. The lad­der creaked, shed a skin of mouldy dust as she clam­bered up.

The sailor pulled her­self to the schooner’s deck, looked about in hor­ror. The deck was odd­ly soft, clad as it was in cen­time­ters of some soft moss. Sails hung, black and holey with cloy­ing-sweet mould. Not a per­son was to be seen aboard. Sorah crept to the rail, beheld an even stranger sea. 

A soft, flat plain stretched beyond. A yel­low car­pet of fuzzy mold, inter­spersed by tree­like twists of blue spi­rals. Not far off, clus­ters of odd, gasp­ing sphinc­ters the size of drink­ing wells bur­bled and spat puffs of spores and goop. A par­tic­u­late haze, sweet on the tongue, float­ed and glit­tered under a pair of small and wink­ing suns.

Sorah turned briefly in incred­u­lous cir­cles, stopped. She frowned. The gang­plank was down. Inves­ti­gat­ing, she found it rest­ed on the green sea. Down the plank, she prod­ded the green with a cau­tious toe, found it soft and damp as fresh grass. She pressed a heel to it. It bore the weight.

“Is any­one out there?” she called, stand­ing on the squashy sea. The land pro­duced a soft echo.

Some­thing moved on the hori­zon. Sorah squint­ed, shad­ed her eyes. A human shape, dis­tant and green as the sur­round­ing land, was wav­ing. “Yes, I see you!” Sorah cried, waved back. The shape beck­oned. 

With uneasy steps, Sorah ven­tured into the vast and alien sea.

The Trackless Sea

Folk fear the open sea. Unmapped tracts of blue, where land slips from sight and fog devours space, inspire a ter­ror matched only by the very dark­est depths of wilder­ness. A ves­sel on the Track­less Sea may become tru­ly lost, for on those misty waters, one’s hull may wreck on the rocks of anoth­er world’s shore.

All sailors know there’s an end to the World. The blank, far West­ern spaces of maps, where car­tog­ra­phers doo­dle curl­ing sea mon­sters and mess­es of made-up islands, are a jol­ly recog­ni­tion of the awful bounds of Litoran knowl­edge. Though, for cer­tain, these bounds may be shift­ed and detailed by clever minds (as new routes are dis­cov­ered every year,) they rarely expand. This is because the World is indeed stark­ly lim­it­ed. Beyond the hori­zon, there’s lit­tle telling where a stray ship may land.

Any small vari­a­tion from known, proven Coastal routes may lead a ship astray. Care­less laps­es in nav­i­ga­tion, dis­ori­ent­ing storms, or attempt­ed short­cuts may lead a ship into alien waters. Lucky sailors regain their bear­ing by the recog­ni­tion of stars and island shores. The unfor­tu­nate become lost near-imme­di­ate­ly, find them­selves amidst strange shores and unfriend­ly stars.

What lies beyond the Sea is rarely pre­dictable. Most reli­ably, a lost ship will enter some nev­erend­ing plain of water. Oth­ers, unusu­al lands. In any event, efforts to reverse course rarely bear fruit. Wher­ev­er a stray ship winds up, there’s rarely any easy return. ††

Alien Shores

Those lost at sea are apt to encounter many strange waters. ‡ Green reach­es choked with pats of weeds. Warm and misty trop­ics, steamy as a hot­spring. Still and silent nights, so dark and clear as to make a ship float amidst stars.

These waters are cease­less reach­es between lands. With­out some storm, or luck, or clev­er­ness, a ship may sim­ply float for all time. By some odd­i­ty or trick, though, the waters may change. Land may appear on the hori­zon. A ship may find itself brought to an alien shore. ‡‡

Those who have become un-lost at sea bring home odd tales of the lands beyond extra­world­ly waters. Many speak of warm, shal­low reefs, inter­spersed with mon­ster-inhab­it­ed deeps and nev­er-ceas­ing clus­ters of sub­trop­i­cal islands. These are the most famil­iar.

Oth­er lands are stranger. In the drunk­en cor­ners of sea­far­ers’ pubs, ragged men will tell you of the leg­endary Dark Con­ti­nent, a sun­less place, lit only by glar­ing stars and the glow­ing eye of a bur­bling red moun­tain. There, obsid­i­an-black giants lead bru­tal, hero­ic lives in the near-dark. Oth­ers tell of moun­tain­ous Tefelk, a long-sought land of many rich­es and odd, hairy folk. No once-lost sailor can tell you absolute­ly for sure, how­ev­er, the trick to return to any of these lands, nor how ever to return to the Coast.

Routes Between Worlds

For as long as Litorans have feared the Track­less Sea, they have sought to con­quer it. Count­less gen­er­a­tions of schol­ars and sailors have worked to rea­son paths through Coastal waters, safe pas­sages which risk not a fate­ful depar­ture into lands or waters unknown. This pur­suit has been suc­cess­ful enough. How else are car­go and pas­sen­gers fer­ried from North to South, from island to bay-side port? §

Routes between worlds are anoth­er mat­ter. Attempts to cross from the Coast to oth­er seas or coasts of lands are patchy, at best. Attempts to make way from unknown lands back to the Coast are even more uncer­tain. Such pur­suits are usu­al­ly com­posed of equal parts rumor, sor­cery, and des­per­ate super­sti­tion.

Some say, to nav­i­gate from unknown waters back to the Coast, a crew must sim­ply cap­size their ves­sel at the instance of sun­set. Anoth­er method, said to route a ves­sel to the gold­en waters sur­round­ing the Land of Awn, dic­tates a ship must for­sake all her gold. Oth­er prac­tices are more dire. To return home from the tar­ry foam of Leal, a ship must con­tain only a sin­gle sailor. To escape a sand­bar with no end, walk to the hori­zon.

No quan­ti­ty of fail­ure or daunt­ing, watery void will dis­suade the Coast’s sailors from their old meth­ods. Per­haps, such prac­tices remain in the minds of sea­go­ers, for those who do fail nev­er return home, and those who do return to the World are apt to believe that even their mad­dest attempts bear fruit. Per­haps, even still, lost Lit­torans will believe in even mad­ness when strand­ed in the watery void between a thou­sand shores.

⁂