The Ocean of the Dead: Ship Kings 4 Read online

  PRAISE FOR SHIP KINGS

  ‘McGahan continues what is turning into an authoritative act of world-building, in prose much more chiselled than that usually found in this kind of fantasy.’

  Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘This is a richly imagined world of creaking timbers, tall masts and muscled sailors amid the complex social order of a ship of 600 men. McGahan’s lyrical prose makes you feel the sway of hammock and hear the sea thumping against the hull.’

  Australian Book Review

  ‘A rollicking and exhilarating sea adventure, the book feels like an ode to the greats like Robert Louis Stevenson and Herman Melville; it’s a remarkable new series, and both children and young adults will find themselves pulled into the swelling story.’

  AlphaReader.blogspot.com.au

  ‘An exhilarating read. McGahan lets his adventure build gently and a detailed, evocative coming-of-age story unfolds.’

  Saturday Age

  ‘This beautifully crafted novel shapes up as a classic seafaring tale. In Dow, we have the makings of a classic hero.’

  Herald Sun

  ‘McGahan captures the mystery and romance of the sea, and draws us in with his fine portrayal of his restless lead.’

  Australian Bookseller + Publisher

  ‘McGahan has produced a memorable start to his trilogy, peopled with characters who stay in the mind . . . One can only hope that it will not be long before the next episode of Dow’s life takes place.’

  Magpies

  ‘Masterful storytelling, elegant prose and a powerful sense of place . . . the kind of storytelling that stays with you long after the tale has ended.’

  Viewpoint

  SHIP KINGS

  THE COMING OF THE WHIR LPOOL

  THE VOYAGE OF THE UNQUIET ICE

  THE WAR OF THE FOUR ISLES

  THE OCEA N OF THE DEAD

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2016

  Copyright © Andrew McGahan, 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 9781760292188

  eISBN 9781952534560

  Cover and text design by Liz Seymour

  Cover illustration by Ritva Voutila

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Contents

  HASTENING SLOWLY

  1. A PRINCE’S FAREWELL

  2. SOUTHWARD BOUND

  3. THE CARNIVAL OF THE BECALMED

  4. AT THE PUMPS

  5. AFTER THE CLOUD

  6. THE GREAT PROPHECY

  7. THE WAIST OF THE WORLD

  8. VISITATIONS

  9. THE WALKERS ON THE WATER

  10. THE ORIGINS OF FORESIGHT

  11. THE SACRIFICE

  12. THE ONE-EYED CAPTAIN

  13. THE EDGE

  14. THE GIFT OF THE DEAD

  15. THE GREAT SOUTHERN LAND

  16. THE MARINER

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HASTENING SLOWLY

  It is no easy thing, to take leave of the world.

  We will attempt the Barrier Doldrums! Dow Amber had declared boldly to his senior officers in the first hours of his captaincy. But while he had known that it could hardly be a matter of sailing south there and then, that there was much to be done first in preparation for such a voyage, he had no real conception of just how formidable those preparations might be.

  His crew, for instance, those that had gathered in Stone Port harbour – would they accept his challenge, and follow him? They were not a company of seasoned mariners, after all. They were refugees: Ship Kings, Twin Islanders and New Islanders thrown together in equal numbers, men, women and children all – a mob united only in their despair of war. Many of them were sailors, yes, but many were green hands, and some had never even put to sea. To expect that such an untried multitude would agree to attempt a feat that had defied even the finest seaman in the world, surely that was madness – more likely by far they would react with horror and rebellion and refusal.

  And yet perhaps the very daring of the challenge actually aided Dow in this. For when he did announce his intentions to the assembled crew, there was no horror, no refusal: rather, an awed fascination seemed to silence the crowd, a thrill of possibility. Oh, there were some who baulked and turned away, but most found a fire awakening in their hearts at the thought of so lofty an enterprise. There would be terrors in the Barrier, yes, but beyond those terror lay, lay –

  Lay what indeed?

  Hope? New lands? Freedom?

  All of these and more, it seemed to the men and women on the Chloe and the Snout in that first flush of excitement. And with the famous Dow Amber to lead them – one so clearly marked by fate, saved from a dozen deaths for some great purpose, for this great purpose – and with Ignella of the Cave as their scapegoat, and with oil-driven engines to power their ships when the winds failed, then yes, yes, the Doldrums could be crossed, and new lands discovered, and the old lands and all their woes left forever behind.

  In response thus to Dow’s call, some seven hundred souls signed on willingly to sail with him over the edge of the world.

  *

  Even then, there were complications that could doom the attempt before it truly began. For one, what of everyone’s families? If this was to be an expedition of settlement, a one-way voyage of no return, then the crews must be allowed to collect their kinfolk: husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, from all across the Four Isles. It would entail many months of sailing, even before they turned for the Doldrums.

  And meanwhile, what of supplies? To go voyaging afar, the fleet would need food and other gear by the hundreds of tons, but they had no money, and nothing to trade, so how could they stock their ships?

  Dow and his officers could see only two grim options there in Stone Port. Either they must go overland begging for rations from the already impoverished folk of New Island, a process bound to be demeaning and tortured. Or they must turn pirate, and begin raiding the Ship Kings and Twin Islander ports along the coast, which would surely be a bloody exercise, if it succeeded at all.

  But here Dow’s renowned luck came to the rescue. On the day that he led his little fleet out through the Rip on their first training run, a storm blew up, and in its wake they happened upon three Ship Kings merchantmen, stuffed with goods from the tribute warehouses, who had become separated in the squall from their escort battleships. Undefended, the merchantmen fell with scarcely a shot to Dow’s fleet, and in short order the holds of the Chloe and the Snout were full to the brim with stores enough for a year and more.

  So far, so good. But one vital item they still lacked: whale oil. Dow possessed sixteen attack boats that were crucial to his plans for crossing the windless Barrier – but they were useless without fue
l. Dow had none, and knew of nowhere on New Island where he might find sufficient for his needs. There was, indeed, only one place in all the world with a bounty of the precious liquid. So Dow now set a course west for his fleet, to the far-off Twin Isles. In farewell, his last sight of his homeland was of the great promontories of the Claw, East Head and West, fading gently into the sea haze. And whether he ever saw those headlands again, history does not report it.

  In the six-week voyage that followed, he pondered the riddle of what to do when the Twin Isles were reached. Whale oil was not to be had simply for the asking. It was more valuable than gold, and jealously guarded by the Twin Islanders in fortified warehouses in the great city of Port Green, home to the whaling fleet. The Ship Kings, in all their might, had never penetrated those warehouses during the war, so how was Dow to achieve it with only two ships and fewer than a thousand crew?

  But again fortune came to his aid. When the Chloe and the Snout reached Twin Islands waters, it emerged that the Isles were gripped by civil conflict. None other than Constance Reed, Mistress Superior of the Laundresses, had arrived home only a few weeks in advance of Dow, and had declared herself War Mistress in Damien Tender’s place, avowing that the fight against the Ship Kings would continue, regardless of the lost Battle of the Headlands. But her ascension had not been universally acclaimed. In some cities the Peace Faction was still strong, and disputed her right to rule. Her reaction had been to besiege and blockade these cities. One of them was Port Green.

  In which Dow saw his opening. He put Jake Tooth – former harpooner, with many friends still among the whaling fleet – ashore by night to enter the city with a proposal for those within. Jake’s grin, upon his return, told of his success. The embattled Peace Faction, despairing of their cause in a Twin Isles ruled by Constance Reed, were prepared to help Dow’s expedition. Not only would they smuggle out as much oil from the warehouses as possible and deliver it, but many engineers and experienced sailors and officers from the whaling fleet were eager to embark on the voyage as well.

  So it was that there arrived a moonless night when the Chloe and the Snout came in close to a beach ten miles north of Port Green, and took off some ninety men and woman, along with several hundreds of barrels brimming with whale oil, fully a quarter of the Twin Isles’ entire reserve – a fortune beyond price, and secured without bloodshed. And by the time Constance Reed found out, to her fury, Dow and his ships were long gone.

  Now, there remained only the Kingdoms to be visited. It meant another long voyage, and further risk and delay. But it must be done, for on New Island already, and in the Twin Isles too, members of the crew had been allowed to go secretly ashore to collect their families. The same opportunity could not be denied to those Ship Kings on board. And so eastward sailed Dow’s little fleet, to make one last call before turning south to the Doldrums.

  *

  Dow himself celebrated his twentieth birthday as his ships slipped away from Port Green. Four years exactly had now passed since the night he had stolen aboard the Chloe as a youth of sixteen, and been discovered, then hauled up before its commander, Vincente of the Shinbone, for judgement. Four years . . . and here Dow was now, captain of the same vessel.

  It was an amazing reversal, and unprecedented that someone so young should be in command of a great battleship, let alone two – and that he could be leading such a fleet upon the most perilous venture known to the seas. In any normal circumstances it would all be considered an absurdity. And the deeps only knew, Dow had been doubtful when assuming the command, all too aware of his own inexperience and inadequacies.

  But he had fewer doubts now. Why, his every act as captain had prospered, as if he was being guided by the hand of fate itself. He had eluded all battle with those who would delay or capture him. His ships were fully provisioned against long seafaring. His officers had proved loyal, and his crews were green no longer. He was master indeed of a fleet that was now free and fit for any hazard. And after this last detour to Great Island, he would turn that fleet to its true purpose: the crossing of the dreaded Barrier.

  Oh, Dow could well imagine that severer trials awaited him and his folk in the Doldrums. The New World would not be won without hardship. But let those trials be faced when they came. For the present, he and his fleet were shaking themselves clear of the Old World with a greater ease than he had ever dared to hope. And that was a sign, surely, that he did right.

  *

  Of such rightness – or otherwise – only time would tell.

  But in one belief at least, Dow Amber was quite mistaken. For, as this, the fourth and final volume of his history, will now relate, the Old World was not in fact ready to release him so easily. Not yet.

  As for their trials in the Doldrums, he was wrong about them too.

  They would prove worse than any imagining . . .

  1. A PRINCE’S FAREWELL

  The first grey gleam of dawn illuminated the boats as they crossed the final few dozen yards of water to the Chloe’s side, dark shapes with oars dipping, and pale, frightened faces staring up at the ship.

  From the high deck, Dow watched impatiently, eager to be done and away. This was the last assignation of all. For nigh on two months now the Chloe and the Snout had been haunting the coast of Great Island, landing here and there in deserted coves by darkness to collect people and supplies, and fleeing far offshore by day to hide from hostile eyes. All the while they had avoided discovery or disaster. Now these final few family members were being ferried from the last beach.

  ‘Stand by,’ he said to the tall, elderly officer at his left shoulder. ‘Raise sail the moment the last boat is hoisted clear.’

  Fidel only nodded calmly, not needing to be told.

  Dow glanced to the north, where, a hundred yards off, the dim bulk of the Snout reared. Smaller shadows clustered about its flanks. More boats, filled with more refugees fleeing the Old World. Thirty people for the Snout, Dow knew – and some forty for the Chloe. With these final additions, that would bring the combined complement of both ships up to thirteen hundred souls; near as many as the two vessels could safely carry.

  Thirteen hundred people! Dow had to marvel. So many lives in his hands, so much blood that might be spilled, and so many hopes betrayed, if all his plans went wrong. And yet, when he considered that these same thirteen hundred folk must found a new civilisation from nothing in the New World, then that total dwindled to something nakedly small and vulnerable. All too few, indeed.

  The newcomers were climbing the Chloe’s boarding ladders now. Dow glanced to his right, where a slight figure wrapped in an overlarge coat stood at the rail, face a pale oval in the gloom, traced by a cobweb of scars. Ignella of the Cave. She was staring down with an absorption that seemed to match Dow’s own. And why not? All these lives were in her hands too. In fact, here in the Kingdoms, Nell’s native land, it had been more her name than Dow’s that had encouraged so many to abandon their homes and step blindly into the void.

  Dow returned his attention to the main deck. The refugees were being helped over the rail and sorted into groups, a dishevelled mob to look at, laden down with whatever belongings they could carry by hand. Many glanced up searchingly at the high deck, and Dow did not delude himself about whom they sought there: himself, the famous Dow Amber, and Nell, the mysterious scapegoat of the Ribbon Cave, the two who were to lead them beyond the known seas, through oblivion, and on to a new life beyond . . .

  Dow gazed back levelly, noting the expressions on the staring faces. Surprise, on some, and even disappointment. Is that really them? – he could almost hear the thoughts – But he’s so short! And I can’t see in this light, but does she really have all the scars they say she has? But mostly the expressions were shy, fleeting, tinged with something like embarrassed awe. Only the children among the adults gawped in naked fascination – even, Dow noted wistfully, one half-grown youth who could not be more than five years younger than himself. Fifteen years old . . . why, when Dow had been that
age he had not even left Yellow Bank. He had been just an anonymous boy who dreamed of the sea, and yet was forbidden by his father to even look upon it.

  Well, he wasn’t that Dow Amber anymore. Now, he was Dow Amber the myth, the legend, the inspiration. And where once he would have refused such a mantle, he knew he no longer had the luxury to do so. These people needed a myth and a legend at their head, if they were to dare the equally legendary Barrier. He must accept that burden deliberately and without complaint or reserve. Otherwise how could he ask them to follow him?

  If only – he thought, with another glance to his side – if only Nell would accept the same truth . . .

  ‘Raise anchor,’ Fidel called.

  Dow stirred, his impatience returning. Yes, it was long past time that they were off, the sun would soon be risen. He kept an attentive eye on the crew as they hurried the newcomers below, hauled the boats up to their davits, and set the sails aloft. All was done with practised swiftness. As it should be: they had been ten months at sea in all now, since departing Stone Port. There was no excuse for laxness anymore. The sails sighed and filled and the Chloe slid forward, borne on a light offshore breeze.

  Still, Dow remained on edge, for their position was yet an exposed one. This last beach was in a cove along the coast of Estland, the southeastern-most of Great Island’s eleven kingdoms. Estland itself was not a great naval power, but it was neighboured by the kingdom of Valdez, the border lying only fifty miles north – and Valdez was home to a much larger fleet. And all the Ship Kings fleets, Dow knew, were searching for him, seeking to sink him if they could – by express order of the Sea Lady, Henrietta.

  Sea Lady, not Sea Lord.

  Dow took an instant to note the curious symmetry of history. Who would have thought that both the Twin Islanders and the Ship Kings would come to be ruled by women? There was no impediment to it in the Twin Isles, maybe, where women were commonly captains and administrators and the like – but for the hidebound Ship Kings to accept female rule, that was a surprise.