Fin rolled out of the way, knowing what was coming next. The puke pill had hit home at last. Bull Face bent over and retched hard into the water.
That was Fin’s cue. Doing his best to avoid the now-disgusting tide, he dodged past the still-heaving Meressian and climbed the broken statue behind him. “Hope you liked the thief stew!” he shouted triumphantly. Then he shoved his hands into the streaming hole where the statue’s mouth had been and launched himself into it.
It felt like being swallowed alive.
Momentum was enough to get him through, but the flow of water into the ship was enormous. It sucked him backward, slamming him against the hull. Water shot up his nose and into his ears. He pushed against the dullwood, kicked, flailed at it. Desperately, he yanked one knife from his belt and dug it into the wood, then the other, using them to haul himself away from the sucking hole.
Again and again, he planted the knives and pulled himself after them, bracing with his feet. And just as his lungs screamed and he gave a last little prayer that he might be part mermaid, his hand burst through the surface, his head a second behind.
He sucked in great gulps of air. Shouts filled his ears. The Meressian ship was sinking fast!
He looked around. They’d pulled off from the Quay; its docks were too far away to swim to. And also, he remembered with a twisted stomach, he didn’t know how to swim. “Shanks,” he coughed, gripping his knives tightly.
The only option was to climb. He scrambled up the ship’s carvings like a lizard on a drain spout, planting his feet on the shoulders of stone-faced kings and finding handholds in the mouths of vicious-looking monsters.
He crouched beneath the ornate railing circling the main deck. It was mayhem: Meressians rushed back and forth, hauling treasure up from the hold and filling the lifeboats before abandoning ship themselves. Hoping to get lost in the fray, Fin slipped over the railing and slunk toward one of the empty lifeboats.
But his bad luck seemed to be holding. “Wait, who’s that kid?” a familiar voice boomed. “He doesn’t belong here! That must be the thief!” Footsteps pounded across the deck as Bull Face, soaked, sniffling, and still looking queasy, pushed his way out of one of the hatches.
Fin sighed. So close to being forgotten. Then again, he guessed sinking a whole ship took a little more time to fade from the mind than showing up with a butterfly.
He had to admit, though, that a part of him was glad to see the angry beast. He couldn’t much bear the thought of the Meressian drowning down in the hold, no matter how hard the creature had tried to kill him.
That happiness didn’t last long. Bull Face wrenched free his sword and pointed it toward Fin. “Don’t let him get away!” he bellowed.
Fin only had two options: overboard or up. And since swimming was out, he leapt toward a tangle of rigging and shimmied up it. He hadn’t gotten far, though, when the ropes creaked and swayed from someone much heavier chasing after him.
Fin swallowed and climbed faster. In moments, he was in the canopy, leafy sails rustling all around as the breeze picked up and turned to wind in earnest. The whole ship lurched, shaking him from side to side.
“Come on, boy, there’s no escape!” Bull Face shouted. Though he couldn’t match Fin for speed, he was coming more quickly than Fin had expected.
Fin reached the bottom of the netting that hung between the masts and slithered up through it. The holes were too narrow for Bull Face to follow, but that didn’t slow him long. With a serrated blade, he sliced the ropes, snapping them clean.
“Shanks!” Fin cried, leaping to the nearest mast.
“Caught now, kid,” the Meressian said, pulling himself through. “Nowhere to go. Give me the Key, and there’s still time for us both to make it off before she capsizes.”
“Still a no, but thanks!” Fin called back, shimmying up the mast. It narrowed quickly, just a spindly stretch of wood that held the topsails proper. In a few moments, there really wouldn’t be anywhere for him to go.
A gust of wind pummeled the ship, rattling the leaf-sails. Fin’s heart skipped a beat. He clutched the wood tight, feeling the grain scrape against his palms. What had been a calm day for the Khaznot Quay had come to an end. The winds were picking up again now, screaming down from the peak of Khaznot Mountain.
“Where you gonna go, kid?” Bull Face asked. He was too large to climb up this part, at least. But the blade of his sword glittered bright in the sunlight. Looking at it made Fin a bit queasy.
“Nowhere left but down,” the Meressian said, flashing his massive teeth in a grin. He sliced the sword through the air, chopping straight into the wood.
The whole mast shook. Fin climbed higher. Somewhere in the distance, a great roar built, as if a lion were greeting its prey. Fin knew the sound well. It was the big winds, coming down from the mountain to tear across the bay. He braced himself, listening.
Chop! The mast shivered in his hands. How much more could it take before the spindly wood snapped, plunging him to the deck several stories below?
“Done for now, kid!” the Meressian called. The ship lurched, tipping ever farther sideways. “Give it up!”
Fin breathed deep. “Come on, come on!” he urged, begging the wind. His fingers pawed at the sleeves of his coat, playing nervously with a pair of strings hidden inside each one.
Just behind the next chop! of Bull Face’s sword, just over the creaking of the ship and the shouts from below, the roar closed in. The massive, musical, monstrous roar.
Fin locked eyes with the scowling Meressian and smiled. “Sorry, jog,” he said. “We’ve had a time, but I think this is my ride.” Bull Face paused, his sword mid-swing, confusion in his eyes. He sniffled.
And then the wind rushed over them, searing cold across Fin’s exposed skin. He jumped, straight out, away from the ship, diving for the surface of the bay.
Because if there were three things every orphan in the Quay knew, the best and most awesome, without a doubt, was how to skysail. Fin pulled hard on the little threads inside his sleeves, and his coat billowed out behind him, catching the wind as it hit. Just moments before he would have splashed into the churning water of the bay, the gust pushed him upward, outward, away.
Fin wheeled in a happy spiral, laughing as he went. Bull Face shook his fist and cursed. His mates down on the deck continued loading the last lifeboat even as the ship rolled slowly. There was still time for them all to make it. They would remember the master thief who sank them forever, he wagered, even if they wouldn’t remember Fin himself for an hour.
He breathed a last sigh of relief as he winged toward shore. At his hip, he felt the weight of his thief’s bag. He might not have pockets full of treasure, but he’d recovered the Key. And finding his mother was worth way more to him than an entire ship’s hold worth of riches.
CHAPTER 10
What Are You Doing Here?
Marrill’s knees wobbled as she thought about what would happen if she never made it home. How long would her parents wait for her until giving up? How sick would her mother get in the meantime? It would be all her fault. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to stay upright, to keep together even as she wanted to fall apart.
Ardent held up his hand. “Don’t panic yet,” he said. “You simply can’t go back the way you came, is all.”
A trickle of hope began to ease the tightness in her chest. She was fine with going home a different way, so long as she could actually get home.
“Why don’t you take her on a tour of the ship?” Coll suggested. He looked to Marrill and added, “Might make you feel a little less adrift.” He gave her a knowing wink as if he understood what it meant to be thrust into an overwhelmingly new situation. She smiled gratefully, and he nodded.
“Excellent idea!” Ardent made his way down the steps to the main deck and crossed it. When he reached the hatch at the base of the ship’s front, he pulled it open.
Marrill sniffed and followed, Karnelius rousing himself and trailing after.
br /> Once through the door, she found herself at the top of a wide spiral staircase, more elaborate than any she’d ever seen. Her steps slowed as she took in the elegantly scrolled handrails, the golden risers. Even the walls were impressive, painted with vibrant murals that appeared to move, ever so slightly, in front of her.
Ardent seemed not to notice, or be impressed. He marched determinedly down the stairs, continuing the conversation, and Marrill had to scramble to keep up.
“The Pirate Stream,” he declared, “touches all waters, everywhere, at some place and some time. Even the most remote and removed ones.”
“But there weren’t any waters in the parking lot,” Marrill said, peering over the railing. The stairs seemed to go on forever. She guessed there were at least eight stories below this one, maybe more, far more than it looked like the ship could hold from the outside. And at each level, corridors and hallways branched out from the center like the arms of an octopus. “I mean, the heat made it look like water, but that was a mirage.…”
“Well, there you have it!” Ardent announced. He continued down the steps. “You see, when I say the Pirate Stream is a river, it’s really more like many rivers all at once, each twisting through new and exciting places. The Deep Stream, the part that looks like an ocean, is where many of these rivers overlap. It may seem a single body, but it is, I assure you, a hundred billion currents flowing to a hundred billion worlds, all around and atop and beneath each other. Which is why having an experienced Stream navigator like Coll is essential to getting anywhere.”
He paused at the first landing and squinted down a dim corridor.
“What are you doing here?” he mumbled.
“Um, you asked me to follow you?” Marrill said.
The wizard chuckled. “Not you,” he said, continuing downward. “I meant the Promenade Deck.” He waved his hand over his shoulder at the floor they’d just passed. “You’ll have to watch out for that one—it likes to walk off. Best to stay away from it. Never know where it’ll end up; sometimes it up and heads to another ship.”
“Um…” Her words faltered. “How do I know which one’s the Promenade Deck?”
He glanced up at her, forehead furrowed. “It’s the one that moves.”
Before she could even respond, he’d already reached the next floor. Marrill raced to catch up.
“The other thing that’s good to have,” he said, resuming the earlier conversation as though it had never been interrupted, “is a map.”
Marrill stumbled once she reached the landing. It opened into a hallway, long and wide. And practically every inch of it was filled with doors. They stood frame-to-frame, all gold handles and silver hinges and brass knockers shaped like faces with eyes that seemed to turn and watch her. There were big doors, from floor to ceiling. There were small doors scarcely big enough for a mouse to run through. There were doors that didn’t go all the way to the floor, and doors on the floor beneath them.
“This is the Door-Way,” announced Ardent. He strode purposefully down the hall, the hem of his robe snapping around his ankles as he stepped over doors in the floor. Finally, he reached a single door, plastered alone against the far wall. Its knocker was nearly as big as his head, and its frame sported a stylish ebony molding, carefully carved into tall dragons. “And this is the Map Room.”
Marrill scurried after him, catching up just as he twisted the big brass knob. “After you,” he said, holding the door open for her. Marrill stepped inside, confident whatever she was about to see couldn’t be any weirder. And just as quickly, her confidence died.
The room was, indeed, full of maps. It was shaped like a hexagon, with the wall across from her dominated by a large window looking out ahead of the ship. Nautical-seeming instruments crowded the other four walls, and charts with names like Giltbreaker Islands, West Bublestuck, and The Puzzly Lands hung between them.
In the center stood a large round table, its surface strewn with maps. On top of one, three big rats seemed to be charting a course using instruments that were nearly as big as they were. Each rat had two tails. And a collar. And way too many legs.
Karnelius bounded past her, pouncing before she could grab him. The creatures let out a collective squeak and scrambled from the table. They were oddly graceful, able to dodge and weave around her cat without his getting so much as a claw near any of them.
Unscathed, they disappeared into various nooks and crannies in the wall, leaving Karny behind to lurk with his tail twitching. Marrill watched it all with wide eyes.
Then she realized what the creatures were. She grinned for the first time since boarding the ship. She was getting the hang of this place. “Let me guess,” she announced. “Pirats?”
“Well, we’ve been calling them bilge mice,” Ardent said. “But that’s much more dignified. Of course, Coll just calls them ‘an errand gone wrong,’ but how was I to know that a mouse and collar is a type of rigging? You get what you ask for!”
Marrill was completely lost again. And then Ardent turned to her and smiled his gentle smile. “But pirats it is from now on, I think,” he said. And just like that, she felt a little bit more at home.
“So which map do we need?” she asked, peering at the label on a drawer in an old weathered chest. “ ‘Atlas of the Lesser Scabies,’ ” she read.
“Definitely not that one,” Ardent said. “In fact, let’s never speak of that one again. No.” He twittered the tips of his fingers together. “I fear the map to get to your world won’t be in here. This was really just a stop on the tour. Bad timing, when I think about it.”
Marrill felt her newfound relief begin to waver.
“As I said before, your world is a place the Pirate Stream rarely touches. I can think of only one very specific map that would do the task. It’s quite unique, actually.
“But there’s just one problem.” He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t have it. Plus it may or may not be in several pieces. And also those pieces are likely strewn in disparate lands across the Stream, which could be considered a third problem. And the fourth would really be not just trying to figure out where the pieces are but how to get them when you find them. And there’s the small chance others might be searching for them, too, so that’s a fifth problem and…”
“That sounds like a lot of problems,” Marrill pointed out when he was finally forced to inhale.
“Well, some good news there!” Ardent’s face brightened. “It just so happens that I myself am on a quest to find that same map. I need it to help locate someone… someone who may need me.…” He trailed off. His eyes still looked at her, but his gaze seemed to pass through her, into a distance he alone could see. The tips of his smile quivered, and for just a moment, he looked very, very tired.
Then he shook his head, and the goofy, carefree wizard was back. “Anyway, you’re welcome to look for it with me!”
Hope surged through Marrill. She practically jumped up and down, nearly falling against the Map Room table. “So if we find the pieces of this map and put it together, it will show us how to get home to my parents?”
Ardent nodded. “Definitely. It is said the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere will take its possessor wherever he or she needs to go.”
Marrill let out the breath she’d been holding. For the first time in this entire—very confusing—conversation, she finally had something concrete to hold on to.
She stood up straight, mustering her resolve. “So how do we find it?”
Ardent ahemmed. Around them the ship groaned as she cut her way through the waves. “Well, that’s actually where I was hoping you might help us,” he said.
“Me?!” The deck jumped beneath them as it crested a big swell, sending her stumbling. Through the window, Marrill noticed the waves frothing at the tips.
“Oh, that was a big one,” Ardent said. “Let’s finish the tour while we can still stand on the staircase, hm?” Without waiting for her to answer, he swept out of the room.
“But how
am I supposed to find the Map?” she called, chasing after him.
“Berths are on the next level,” he said, pointing down. “Pick any one you like. You’ll know you’ve found the correct floor by the prevalence of sleepy bugs. Below that’s the galley and brig and all those other cabins that Coll insists we have.”
He began climbing toward the deck. “Bottom level is the Bilge Room. There are signs on the door. I suggest you heed them. And that”—he threw open the hatch and stepped outside—“concludes our tour. How fare things out here, Coll?”
“Wet,” Coll grumbled as Marrill stumbled out into the open. Rain poured down, soaking her instantly. Karnelius stopped just inside the doorway, saw the rain, and bolted back down belowdecks. Marrill didn’t blame him.
“You were the last one to see the Compass Rose,” Ardent told her. It took her a moment to realize he was back to answering her earlier question about how to find the Map.
“I was?” she asked. Oddly, though the rain fell all around them, and she was drenched in a second, Ardent was completely dry. It was as if every single drop just missed him.
“Of course!” he said. “The scrap of paper I asked about. That’s the Compass Rose. The first piece of the Map.”
Marrill frowned. “It didn’t look like a map.”
“It isn’t,” Ardent explained. “As I said, it’s only a part of one. But for us it’s the best part, for if you can find it again, the Compass Rose should lead us to the other pieces.”
“But how am I supposed to find it?” Marrill asked. “I just saw it for a second. And I don’t even know where I am!”
Ardent beamed. “Which is exactly why I have faith in you,” he said. “I’m sure it won’t take you nearly the hundred and thirty years it took me to find it in the first place!”
CHAPTER 11
A Tentalo on the House
Halfway back to shore, the wind that had buoyed Fin aloft from the Meressian ship gave a few last gasps and died. It came in little bursts, each one dropping him a few more feet and sending his stomach jumping up into his throat. Fin swallowed it down and held on. He was still a champ skysailer, after all, even if he was a little heavier these days than he had been as a kid.