He sighed. “Very well, I will help. Consider the nature of rocs.”
“They’re big birds!” I said, frustrated.
But Sinbad caught on. “Despite their size, they’re timid birds, fearful of sons of Adam, who they know have fearsome things like crossbows. We can scare it off.” He jumped and waved his arms.
But the roc was still coming.
I got smart. “I bet it doesn’t eat zombies. They’re rotten, and they bite.”
“Or cloud maidens,” Duban said. “They have no real flesh.”
Then the roc was upon us, talons extended, its huge beak gaping wide. I whipped out my scimitar and sliced viciously at that beak.
The bird sheered off. In a moment it was past us and sailing back into the sky.
“I scared it off!” I exclaimed, gratified.
“Or it took me for a zombie,” Sinbad said. Now I saw that he was holding up his tattered shirt, which did resemble zombie apparel.
“Or a cloud maiden,” Duban said. He was standing with his hands inside his shirt, poking it out like a formidable bosom. He was small, beardless, and fair: obviously a maiden.
“So we used our wits and prevailed,” I said. “Good job, all.”
“You missed the point, dull mortals,” Faddy said.
“Oh?” I said, annoyed. “And what was your point, brilliant immortal?”
“I told you to consider the nature of rocs. Where do they reside?”
Sinbad clapped a hand to his head. “By the Isle of Diamonds and Serpents! That’s a far sail from here, our next stop. What would a roc want with zombies? It shouldn’t be here.”
“But it is here,” I pointed out.
“Precisely,” Faddy said, looking at me as if I were stupid. That’s bad enough when Jewel does it, worse when my former slave does it. I’d hate to think it was justified. But I certainly didn’t get his point.
“It’s not here,” Duban said, catching on. “It’s an illusion. I wondered why there was no big downdraft of air as it passed. Because it had no substance.”
“Smart lad,” Faddy said approvingly.
“Posted here to scare away anyone who is not a zombie or cloud maiden,” Sinbad said. “So that no one will steal the ambergris.”
“Smart man,” Faddy agreed.
“Who posted it here?” I asked. “Not the zombies or cloud maidens.”
“There is the question,” Faddy agreed, fading out.
Disconcerted, I changed the subject. “We have a return whirlpool to catch.”
“Maybe first we should let the cloud maidens go home,” Duban said. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought that he was a bit taken with these affectionate female forms.
I looked at the zombies. Most were finally extricating themselves from the embraces of the maidens, who seemed to be tiring of getting rejected. Both groups were probably ready to go home.
The avenue between the isles had filled in with water once Duban ceased focusing on it. Now he whistled, getting the attention of the maidens, who evidently liked to be whistled at. “Go home!” he called, and made his gesture. The waters parted and the path resumed. The maidens hastily disengaged and ran across it, some of them waving at Duban, who waved back.
It occurred to me that the boy might be growing up sooner than we expected. He knew that there was no future with these maidens, but what about when he encountered real ones?
When the last maiden was across, Duban relaxed and the sea filled in again. The two isles were now safely separated.
Several cloud maidens stood at the verge and gestured imploringly to Duban. They had evidently figured him for an easier mark. It seemed that the cloud stuff in their heads was not entirely dense.
“Maybe I was too hasty,” he said musingly. “They seem like nice folk.”
“We have work to do,” Sinbad said.
“We do,” I agreed immediately. But I wondered exactly why the maidens were so eager to make it with mortal men. Could it be that they might thereby obtain a bit of mortal substance that would replace an equivalent amount of cloud stuff and take them a tiny step closer to the living state? Were a mortal man to remain with them long enough, the maidens might thus slowly approach mortality themselves. In that manner they would become ever more desirable.
If I ever got deposed as king and given the chance to choose my mode of execution, I might ask to be put in a sealed boat and fed into the whirlpool. My enemies would be sure that meant violent extinction. Instead I would settle down with Cloudia and in time make a real woman of her.
“Are you sure your mind is on our mission?” Sinbad asked.
“Now it is,” I said regretfully.
We rowed the boat around Zombie Isle, searching for the whirlpool. The zombies saw us but couldn’t reach us, as they did not venture into the water. So they trudged back the way they had come, which happened to be the same way we were going. On the far side of the isle we saw what had to be Zombie City, with decrepit buildings. Here there were zombie females—I would not go so far as to call them maidens, as they plainly had been roughly used and were by no means fresh—some of whom gestured to us the way the cloud maidens had.
“If I had to choose, I’d choose clouds,” Sinbad said gruffly. I couldn’t have said it better myself. The zombies would bite our heads off, literally. Not so, the cloud maidens. There were worse fates for a man than to be marooned among such creatures, as I had already concluded.
The tide was going out. Where could it go, but back to our own realm? We just might have solved the mystery of where the waters of the seas went, every day and every night. When the tide receded, all that water had to go somewhere. Not that anyone would believe us.
And there was the forming whirlpool. We rowed madly to intercept it. Then, as the outer swirl caught us, we shipped oars and battened down the hatch.
We were on our way back to the ship, mission accomplished. I hoped our other stops would be as easy.
Chapter Eight
When the spinning stopped and we were adrift again, we unhatched the upper half of our vessel and I promptly retched over the railing.
I had managed not to vomit going down, but coming up was far longer and rougher and the spinning had seemed endless. Even the great Sinbad, sailor extraordinaire, looked a little green. I was secretly pleased at this, knowing that my jealousy of the man was unwarranted.
We spotted our vessel rising and falling on the swells. As we each picked up an oar and headed toward it, I considered the source of my jealousy of the man. Was I not a king? Was I not married to perhaps the most beautiful woman in all the realm? Had I not previously been married to another rare beauty? Yes, to all of the above.
Ah, but I did not have a great reputation for adventures. Sure, I had recently had an epic quest that would rival anything Sinbad had allegedly done, but my adventures had yet to garner songs of praise or poems of worship.
Who needs it? I spat.
Running a kingdom was challenging enough. And was I not adding to my own adventurous legacy?
No, I thought. You are only adding to Sinbad’s.
I sighed. Sometimes you just couldn’t win.
I looked at Duban and felt gratified to spend time with this most unusual boy. He was not my on, not of my blood, but I felt a kinship to him that knew no bloodlines. My own son had been cruelly murdered, and after many years of mourning, Jewel and Duban had later filled the void.
Filled it and then some.
Where the last few years of my life I had been left wandering and alone, confused and lost, these past few months I had found myself again.
And yet...I still longed for adventure.
Perhaps I was not as famous as Sinbad, but I had something even greater: the love of a good woman, and the devotion of a boy with whom I could do no wrong.
As I rowed toward the rising and falling ship, I looked again at Sinbad, and saw the grim determination on his face. He cared not for his reputation or the women who swooned after him and his l
egendary exploits. He cared only for the one who was stolen from him. His own wife.
Quick-witted and fearless, already Sinbad had proven to be a capable companion. Admittedly, it was hard not to like the guy.
Camel dung.
Shortly, we were aboard, and the ambergris safely stored below decks, where it would continue its long process of transformation: from whale gunk to valuable treasure.
For our success, the captain poured us all a draught of excellent wine...and cool water for my son. As evening approached, the musical instruments appeared, and my son asked if we would mind so much if he played. In good spirits, I told him to show them how it was done. Duban grinned, grabbed the lyre, and soon struck up a merry tune, in which the other ramshackle musicians struggled to keep pace with. Sinbad, in rare good spirits—after all, we were now one step closer to rescuing his wife—leaped to his feet and kicked up his boots and stomped a traditional jig. He even grabbed the captain and spun the bearded man around like a lithe maiden. The crew, myself included, guffawed and clapped, and this was how we spent the next few hours of light.
Come morning, with my head feeling as if it had been cracked open and feasted upon by zombies, I climbed above deck to find Sinbad and the captain engaged in an urgent dialogue.
“Ho,” I said, stepping over bodies still sprawled out from last night’s drinking.
“How’ goes it, Niddala?” said Sinbad, keeping to our public ruse.
“If I felt any worse,” I said, “I would be dead.”
Sinbad laughed heartily and slapped my back. “We are deciding our next course, Niddala, perhaps you would like to weigh in.”
His words rubbed me the wrong way. No one asked the king if “perhaps” he would like to weigh in. Indeed, I was used to those waiting on baited breath for my directives.
But I wasn’t the king. Not out here. Here, I was another sailor. Another adventurer. I thought about Sinbad’s situation. “It seems to me,” I said. “That the fastest way to redeem your wife is gather the greatest amount of riches. As valuable as ambergris is, it cannot replace that of diamonds and rubies and emeralds.”
“And gold!” hissed the captain, slapping his hands together, and for the first time I caught a wicked glint in his eye, and my old instincts kicked in. Something told me that perhaps the hardened sailor might not be trustworthy.
“Yes,” I said guardedly. “And gold.”
“Hang on!” cried the captain, and he scurried past me and grabbed a young sailor by the shoulder. He hauled the bucktoothed lad over to us. “Tell him what you told me a fortnight ago, and be quick about it.”
“Captain?”
The captain promptly clapped the youth behind his ear. “Out with it!”
The young man looked nervously from me to Sinbad, and then to the captain, and then he began his tale. Two weeks ago, while sailing on a vessel similar to this, he had heard singing. Beautiful singing that made him weep. The singing had reached his ears from the fog-filled night, clear and sharp and so hauntingly beautiful that he had felt love for the first time in his short, bitter life. The youth had dashed over to the wheel, where he had fought with the captain, begging the man to turn the vessel around. But the captain had been savvy and had known of the enchanted singing. He had plugged his ears with cotton and wax, blocking out the enchanted Siren calls, whose beautiful voices made it all but impossible to turn back away from rocks hidden just below the surface. The boy, who had been so possessed by the Siren’s song, had to be chained below decks to keep him away from the steering helm.
“A strange story indeed, but what does this have to do with our mission,” I asked the captain.
But Sinbad was already nodding. “The Sirens guard a grand treasure. Some claim the biggest treasure of all.”
“I do not understand. If they guard a treasure, then why sing about it?”
“Because their voices are a trap,” said the lad. “Never have I heard such beauty. Never. I weep at night when I think of them—”
The captain clapped the boy again, so hard he stumbled forward. “Oh give it a rest, lad.”
“They were lucky to escape,” said Sinbad. “Most ships would have been destroyed against the rocks, and the treasure would have been safe.” He looked at the boy. “Your captain was indeed a savvy man. He saved his ship and your life.” He turned to the boy. “And you know where this region of the sea is located?”
The boy nodded dreamily. “It is forever seared into my memory, Sinbad.”
“Good, then you will lead us back?”
“And my ship?” said the captain.
Sinbad looked at me, then at the captain. “Let us worry about your ship.”
Chapter Nine
The captain did not look entirely sanguine about that, but since we had hired his ship and he would get a share of what wealth we garnered, he did not object.
Actually I was not sanguine either. Those Sirens were evidently dangerous. We needed to plan carefully, or our ambergris would merely be added to their treasure, and we would be literally sunk.
We set sail for Siren Island. I steeped myself with ginger glop to stifle my sickness and got together privately with Sinbad and Duban. “How do we deal with the Sirens?”
“We plug our ears, of course,” Sinbad said confidently.
I glanced at Duban, encouraging him to weigh in. He did. “Plugging our ears may save the ship, but then how can we get the sirens’ treasure? Surely it is well hidden, and only they know where.”
“Excellent question,” I said. “Do we have an answer?” I glanced significantly at Sinbad.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” the man admitted, to my satisfaction. He might be a great adventurer, but he had missed the obvious. Of course I had missed it too, but had played the scene well. “One of us will have to listen.”
“And be ensorceled by the sound, as that young sailor was? That one won’t be much help to the others.”
“Maybe I can help,” Duban said. “I like music and appreciate its power. Music and magic interconnect strongly. I think I can devise a spell that will make us immune to the lure. That is, we can hear it, but won’t be overcome.”
“Brilliant,” Sinbad agreed. “We can anchor the ship beyond the Sirens’ range and go in on a small boat to negotiate.”
“Negotiate?” I asked skeptically. “What with? All they want is to wreck our ship and take whatever it has. All we want is their treasure, surely composed of all the treasures of all the ships they have lured, wrecked, and pillaged before. This isn’t a dialog between friends; this is war.”
“Ah, but if we are immune to their devastating song,” Sinbad said cannily, “then we will be in a position to kill them and take their treasure regardless.”
“Assuming we can find it,” I said sourly.
“Then we can negotiate after all,” Duban said. “We will threaten to kill all of them, but will spare any who lead us to their treasure.”
Sinbad nodded. “You will make a fine king, in due course. You have the essence.”
Duban did not respond, but I knew he was stifling a retort that he never intended to be any kind of king. But he would have years to change his mind.
“Then let’s get to the magic,” I said. “But let’s also keep it to ourselves. I don’t trust that captain.”
Both Sinbad and Duban nodded. They had picked up on the captain’s shifty look.
“This spell will make us tone deaf for several days,” Duban said. “Until it wears off.” Then he played some eerie music on the lyre. At first it was lovely, then it went flat, losing its appeal. Had the boy lost his touch? Then I realized that his fingers were still plucking the strings, but all the notes had become the same. Or rather, we heard them as all the same. We had become tone deaf.
Then I became aware of something else. I no longer felt queasy. My sea sickness had abated. Somehow the spell had changed that too. I understood from somewhere that something in the ears related to balance and thus to sea sickness, so changi
ng what they heard must have done it.
We sailed on, and in three days my sickness returned. I could hear music again. “Um, Duban—” I said.
He smiled. “Gladly, Father.” He played the theme again, and my queasiness abated.
“Thank you, son.” I was really getting to like that boy.
In due course we approached the area the sailor had told us about. “Soon we’ll hear the Siren song,” he said eagerly. “I can almost hear it now.” He cocked his head.
“Drop anchor!” Sinbad told the captain.
“But we’re still just out of range,” the sailor protested.
“Precisely,” Sinbad said.
The three of us huddled privately so that Duban could give us a good dose of magic music. I knew it was effective because my seasickness was gone. We rehearsed our strategy for dealing with the Sirens one last time. Then we made sure of our weapons and went to our rowboat. Sinbad directed the captain to remain here until we returned, as before.
“Wait!” the young sailor cried. “I want to go too!”
“Camel dung!” Sinbad muttered. “He’ll be a nuisance.”
“I can lead you right to them!” the man insisted. “Otherwise you could cast about for hours looking!”
“We’ll follow the song,” Sinbad said.
But I caught his eye: we could no longer hear the song as such. The others didn’t know that, but we could indeed cast about blindly.
Sinbad decided to be magnanimous. “Very well, sailor, you may come. But I will not be responsible for the likely doom you are bringing on yourself.”
“Oh thank you, sir!” the sailor cried, jumping into the boat. I made a mental note: the Siren song lured men even when they knew it could kill them.
“Make yourself useful,” Sinbad said. “Take an oar.”
The sailor gladly agreed. Soon the sailor and I were rowing, while Sinbad and Duban faced the other way, peering into the forming mists.
“You’re in for something special,” a voice murmured in my ear. It was the ifrit Faddy. “Those fishfolk are something to behold. But don’t trust them farther than you can kiss them.”