The Mad Voyage of Prince Malock (5 page)

Still confused, Kinker scratched the back of his
head and said, “What's so funny? I wasn't joking.”

“You weren't?” said Malock, his laughter quickly
replaced with surprise. “Oh. You were serious.”

“Yes, I was,” said Kinker. “Though if laughter is
all I can expect for asking honest questions, maybe I shouldn't
speak at all anymore.”

Malock chuckled. “Sorry. It's just that magic can't
solve all our problems. It is amazing, to be sure, but you gotta
understand that there are different kinds of magic and not all of
them work the same.”

“What does that mean?”

“Take Bifor,” said Malock. “He's a pagomancer, which
means he's good at ice magic. You know, freezing things, making it
snow, stuff like that—very useful in cold weather, you know, when
you need someone to break the ice off the ship and keep the sails
from becoming frozen solid.”

Kinker looked up. The sun was shining and it was
quite warm.

“But as you can see,” said Malock, gesturing at the
ship, “we are not in cold weather; in fact, it's the middle of
summer. While all mages, Bifor included, know general magic in
addition to whatever they specialize in, most mages are generally
useful in their specialties. Therefore, Bifor, for example, could
heal someone with a healing spell, but he couldn't cure someone of
a deadly disease or heal a fatally-wounded person because he's not
a panamancer.”

“Then what's he even doing on this ship at all?”
Kinker asked. “And why is he the
only
mage? Surely, as the
prince of Carnag, you could have hired more?”

“I did,” said Malock. “Before we lost the rest of
the fleet, each ship had a dozen or so mages, each one specializing
in a particular field of magic that are helpful in sailing, such as
aquamancy and aeromancy, for example. I personally handpicked every
mage to make sure we got the best mages we could.”

“What happened to them?” Kinker asked.

Malock sighed. “Weren't you listening? We lost the
rest of the fleet, including the mages. A variety of disasters took
them all out. It's a miracle Bifor survived because he was on
Our Beloved Lady
, the ship that exploded due to the
mishandled gunpowder in its hold. He was, sadly enough, the only
survivor of that ship.”

“Oh,” said Kinker. “Must be hard for him.”

“It's hard to tell,” said Malock. “He doesn't
confide much in other people. Personally I think he was traumatized
by it and his ceaseless work ethic is how he deals with it. He's
been trying to make himself useful, doing whatever he can do, even
if it wipes him out.”

“Hmm,” said Kinker. “Well, why don't we continue the
tour? I want to see the rest of the ship and meet the rest of the
crew.”

“All right, then,” said Malock. “Since you're going
to be a fisherman, I should introduce you to the fishing crew.
They're at the stern and are in charge of the trawl.”

A few minutes later, they reached the stern of the
ship, where they found the oddest group of fishermen that Kinker
had ever seen.

For one, the only one who looked anything at all
like a fisherman was the young man who introduced himself as Deddio
Mannon. Even then, Kinker didn't see the usual signs of a
fisherman, such as scars from the mishandling of fishing hooks, on
him. Malock informed Kinker that Deddio was currently the head of
the fishing crew.

The next one was a young woman named Jenur Takren.
And by 'young,' Kinker didn't mean early twenties or something. She
looked closer to 18, possibly even younger than that. He could tell
her age because of her hair, which she had short and dark. Her grip
was strong, however, when they shook hands, even stronger than
Deddio's, much to his surprise.

Then he was introduced to Gino and Magnisa, an
aquarian couple. They both resembled goldfish, with orange skin and
large eyes, and were much rounder around the waist than their
fellow fishermen. They were friendly, though Kinker felt rather
timid around them due to his lack of experience with aquarians.

And finally, there was Daro Loman, an unusually thin
man whose eyes always seemed to be somewhere in the distance. At
least, that was the most charitable interpretation Kinker chose to
give of him because Daro did not look him in the eyes when they
were introduced and only barely managed to remember his own name
when asked for it.

“All right,” said Malock to Deddio, “you show Kinker
the ropes. I'll be back in an hour to finish our tour of the
ship.”

Kinker looked at Malock in surprise. “Where are you
going?”

“Back to my stateroom, of course,” said Malock. “I
have some things I need to attend to, some very important things,
and I cannot put them off any longer. Besides, this is an excellent
opportunity for you to get to know your fellow fishermen, as well
as the kind of job you are going to be doing from now until we
reach World's End. Sounds fun, doesn't it?”

Kinker glanced at the assembled fishermen, feeling
uneasy about them for some reason, and said, “Sure. Fun.”

After that, Malock departed, leaving Kinker alone
with the fishing crew, none of whom had said a word since being
introduced.

It was Deddio who broke the silence by stepping
forward and saying, “Well, Mr. Dolan, we were told you are a
fisherman. Have you ever used a trawl before?”

Kinker scratched the back of his head. “I'm more
used to a rod and line, to be frank, though I've worked with trawls
before.”

“Well, I'm sure you'll catch on,” said Deddio. “The
rest of us did.”

“What do you mean, 'the rest of us did'?”

Deddio's smile never wavered on his sunburned face.
“None of us are trained fishermen. Well, I think Daro's father took
him fishing for a few summers when he was a kid, but that was years
ago; right, Daro?”

Daro, whose eyes were on the sky, nodded. “Yep.
Didn't catch a thing, not even once.”

“And this is Jenur's first time as a sailor on a
ship,” said Deddio, gesturing at the young woman. “Gino and Magnisa
used to hunt fish underwater, but—”

“But we never enjoyed it,” Gino said. His voice,
like that of most aquarians Kinker had heard, gurgled, as though he
always had water in it. “Always bought our food from the market. We
never even learned how to use a fishing rod, much less a
trawl.”

Kinker ran his hand through his white hair, feeling
a little exasperated. “Then why are you five on the fishing crew at
all?”

Deddio shrugged. “I don't know if you've been told,
but we lost nearly the entire fleet over the last month and with
them plenty of experienced fishermen and women. Frankly, Kinker,
there are very few people on this ship who are in jobs they are
actually trained or qualified for. Probably why the Captain was so
eager to dump you here with us.”

“How many pounds of fish do you bring in daily?”
Kinker said.

“About forty, sometimes fifty if we're lucky,” said
Jenur, who was leaning against the bulwarks. “Why?”

“How many sailors are on this ship?” Kinker said.
“Including aquarians.”

“A hundred and twenty,” said Jenur, just as promptly
as before. “Again, why?”

Kinker did the math in his head and didn't like the
answer he got. “Fifty pounds of fish can't possibly be enough to
feed one-hundred and twenty hardworking, full-grown sailors, human
and aquarian. How have you survived this long with so little
food?”

Deddio crossed his arms over his chest and looked
out into the sea. “We used to have half a year's worth of food in
the hold. Ran out of it pretty quickly, though, which is why we
made this trawl.”

“How did you run out of so much food so fast?” said
Kinker in disbelief. “And what do you mean, you
made
the
trawl? Didn't you have one on board already?”

“We didn't store the food correctly, so we had to
toss it all out,” Deddio said. “As for the trawl, we didn't need
one at first. Therefore, we had to make do with what we had.”

“And what did you have?” said Kinker.

Deddio glanced over his shoulder at the ropes tied
to the railing on the edge of the stern. “You know, we were just
about to haul in the noon catch, so we'll just show you. You can
watch us and see how we do it.”

Kinker did just that, retreating about a dozen feet
while the five fishermen grabbed the ropes and began hauling in the
trawl with their combined strength. It took them at least half an
hour to haul the entire thing onto the poop deck, which did little
to improve Kinker's mood. It actually did the opposite; the more he
saw of the trawl, the more depressed he became.

When they finally laid the entire trawl on the deck,
Kinker got a good look at it. It was at least twice as long as
Daro, but instead of being made of fiber web (the best kind of
material for trawls), it was made almost entirely of rope, with
some netting for good measure. Rather than being cone-shaped,
however, it more closely resembled a fishing net, being much wider
and open at the mouth than a normal trawl.

Not only that, but it was missing a codend. And he
thought that Jenur's estimate of fifty pounds of fish to be very
liberal. This catch, at least, was probably only forty pounds, some
of which the fishing crew had to throw back into the sea because
they were not fit for consumption by anyone, human or aquarian,
thus making the actual weight probably closer to thirty-five or
maybe even thirty pounds.

“Let me get this straight,” said Kinker, watching
the others gut and clean the fish. “
That
is your trawl?”

Deddio, who was expertly cleaning the fish he
handled, nodded without looking up at Kinker. “Yep. We had to put
it to together ourselves when it became clear we needed a way to
get a lot of fish fast.”

“Had Bifor cast a spell on it to attract fish to
it,” said Gino, who cleaned his fish with slightly more difficulty
than Deddio. “Don't think it really helped, though, because as
smart as that man is, he's not much of a fisherman, you know?”

Kinker ran a hand through his hair again. “Is it a
bottom trawl or mid-water trawl?”

“Mid-water,” Deddio said. “Not long enough to reach
the bottom, sadly.”

“Okay,” said Kinker. “I'm honestly shocked that
you've managed to catch anything at all. No wonder the rest of the
crew looks so sour. They aren't getting enough to eat.”

Jenur stopped gutting a fish and looked at him in
annoyance. “Well, Mr. Master Fisherman, if you know how to make a
better trawl that will catch us tons of fish, we're all ears.”

Her sharp tone surprised Kinker, prompting him to
say, “Didn't your parents teach you to show some respect to your
elders, young woman?”

“Whatever,” said Jenur, as she turned her attention
back to the fish in her hand. “Are you just going to stand there
and watch or are you going to help us clean these fish? They're
going to be lunch.”

Kinker wanted to smack her upside the head for her
disrespect, but as he doubted that would endear him to the rest of
the crew, he simply came over and began helping them clean what
little fish they had caught.

This is going to be a very long voyage,
Kinker thought as Deddio handed him an extra gutting knife from his
pocket.
A
very
long voyage.

-

Malock sat at the desk in his stateroom, looking
over a rough map of the southern seas that Vashnas had drawn for
him not long after he had hired her. On the opposite side of his
desk, Vashnas sat in a rickety old chair that was probably going to
fall apart one of these days, scratching the back of her head and
yawning every now and then.

“So, assuming we stay our course, the first island
we'll run into is this one,” said Malock, pointing at a small
circle on the map.

Vashnas nodded. “Yes. It doesn't have a name and no
one lives on it. I call it Ikadori Island, though, because it has a
ton of ikadori peaches along the shore.”

“Excellent,” said Malock, scribbling a quick note
over it. “We'll stop there for a few days and gather as much of
those peaches as we can. I'm getting sick of having fish every day
for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to be honest.”

“We probably shouldn't stay very long,” Vashnas
said. “I mean, while there aren't any people on that island, there
are animals that live there. Big, ape-like beasts. Pretty
protective of their territory.”

“So what?” said Malock. “We have a lot of skilled
fighters and hunters on board this ship. Besides, we're not going
very deep into the island. You yourself just said the ikadori trees
were along the shore, after all.”

“True” said Vashnas. “There are so many ikadori
peach trees that you could probably get enough to feed the entire
crew for the next three months just from the ones lining the
shore.”

“Then we won't have to fight the beasts that live
there,” said Malock. “Vash, I just wanted to thank you again for
being so helpful. I would be far less confident about our chances
of survival if it wasn't for you.”

Vashnas looked a bit embarrassed, which made her
look really cute to Malock. “Oh, it's nothing, Mal. I'm just happy
I can be of service.”

“No, I'm serious,” said Malock. He reached across
the desk and grabbed her hand. “This voyage has been extremely
stressful for me and we've only been in the southern seas for a
little less than a week. You've proved even more faithful to me
than Banika. Without you, I would be lost.”

Their eyes met. She had such beautiful eyes, dark
and round as they were. They did not break eye contact until
Vashnas slipped her hand out of his, stood up, and walked around
the desk. Malock turned in his chair, skidding it across the
floorboards of his stateroom, and held out his arms, which Vashnas
gently lowered herself into.

For a moment, the two just stared into each other's
eyes. Then she kissed him on the lips; a deep, firm kiss. Her mouth
tasted like fish, but rather than being an off-putting sensation,
it was delicious. He pulled her in closer, as close as he could,
almost causing his chair to fall over, but he righted it before
they fell.