Without his uniform to rein him in, the man seemed somehow twice as large and yet more pale, freckled all over. To say it suited him ill would have been to tell lies, however, a habit which Tante Ankolee avoided indulging—less on principle than in the firm belief it was far easier to keep track of details omitted rather than outright inventions, under most circumstances.
“Y’ should be flattered,” she told him, gently. “It nah many men I’d take the bone out me lip fah, under any circumstance.”
“And I do feel special knowing that, yes. But if ‘twould better serve your purposes, madam . . . feel free to leave it in.”
“Ah ha. You a man o’ unknown depth, Cap’n Collyer.”
“Call me Wilmot,” he replied, his vowels tight—winded thin and dry, all on the instant—as he gathered her into his arms.
There was no great invention to what passed between them next, beneath the unwrapped scrying-mirror’s watchful red-tinged silver eye—hung up beforehand on the prow’s inner rim, just high enough so it would catch Tante Ankolee and Captain Collyer at their recreation, if angled where her cape’s slack length had made a rude, hard bed. Yet both counted themselves well-satisfied by the time its predestined end approached, nevertheless . . . more so by far, at least, than those two ghost-gentlemen whose sad exploits it had last espied upon.
It was only then, meanwhile—at the veriest height of things, when she rolled atop and got herself re-seated, arching back ‘til her hair’s mass almost touched the deck—that she heard this brave young commander finally gasp out loud, his whole world literally turned upside-down. Shifting one of his big hands from hip to slippery fore-folds and guiding him where she needed his application most, prompting him to stir the pot first one way then t’other, fast and faster, ‘til it came a-boil at last . . .
Beneath, as ever, the sea lapped on, so salt and deep and dark. And the will-working that same great power’s adoptive daughter shed like shadow reached out accordingly in every direction at once, feeling through uncounted fathoms—abysses far beyond any human cartographer’s scope to map—to stroke the various creatures whose service she required awake . . .
Then Captain Collyer gave out a whoop, to which Tante Ankolee added her own flourish, signifying that they were done. And they settled back together, laughing hoarse in their mutual glee, quite boneless-gone with pleasure.
“All magic works like ta like, as ya no doubt heard—from me myself, most recently,” she began once they’d both regained their footing, along with as much clothing as either felt necessary for comfort (less in her case, naturally, though surprisingly not much more than that same pair of re-drawn-on breeches, in his). “So whah we done jus’ now serve t’bind us closer yet to them we seek, by tyin’ us neck-in-yoke wit’ them own sharp-drivin’ wants an’ hungers—for loud as Cap’n Parry make protest, ‘least wherever such-all like Mister Mipps can hear him, he an’ me brother been twined fah too long an’ fast in that net them weave together t’ let go all of a sudden, let alone never comply when one of ‘em most crave to take advantage of t’other.”
Collyer sighed. “And you have proof of this troubling thesis, I suppose? . . . Of course you do; nay, do not feel constrained to prove it me, I beg you. Very well, then—what next?”
She slipped a bag from her cape’s pocket, brandishing it his way. “Next, we fill this back up wit’ some few of the thing Cap’n Parry once keep in him hex-sack, just the way I taught him . . . one item in particular, knowledge o’ which I have in from me brother’s former bo’sun, Harry Vimes, in return fah a charm t’ render him invisible in Parry’s eyes once him finally flee while next let ashore fah provisionin’. You see, the tide have channels, like the land have lines—places o’ power which them as find ‘em can use to travel by devil-quick, there an’ back in a day or less, no matter how far the distance. An’ ‘twas by one such channel Jerusalem Parry steer him new-won ship all the way back to Cornwall to retrieve somethin’ he prize almost above all other things, on account of her it ‘mind him of . . . ”
“Some female? But I thought—”
“Shame on you, Wilmot-boy! Cap’n Parry handsome enough to turn most gals’ heads, in him way—just like bold Solomon Rusk, as it happen, who never shied from pursuin’ anything him take a fancy to, skirt-clad or no. But fah all ya might call th’ one I have in mind Parry’s first love, t’ do so to him face would be . . . unwise.”
Here Collyer’s forehead creased but briefly, then smoothed again, almost as fast; he was a smart man, after all, as Tante Ankolee rejoiced to see thus re-proven. And—
“Ah,” he said. “You mean his mother, I think. The hangéd witch.”
She cut him a mocking half-curtsy, taking in herself as well, with much the same motion. Answering: “Who else?”
Sent that creature of his to glean it for ‘im, he did, she recalled Vimes explaining, with a shudder. Something hidden in the church they was to’ve gave him rule over, bricked up, in the wall. He wanted it bad, and ‘twas us what paid for it . . . us after, and Cap’n Rusk before. Oh, if only I’d never told the cap’n what lay in that Navy-ship’s cells, let alone sent him down t’see, with a bloody wink and nod!
Ya knew whah him like best, I s’pose, she’d told him, shrugging, as the man just shook his grizzled head, eyes fair gone wet over her brother’s awful fate. Thinking to herself: And that was danger, always—a tussle’s prospect, wi’ hope of recompense near-equal t’ the hazard’s risk. Never happier than when him life hung i’ th’ balance, the great fool, be it wagerin’ his own snapped neck on the fruit-tree’s highest crop or takin’ some French prize whose cargo seemed well-worth an eye’s loss, so long as him still have one more t’spare . . .
How she sorely did miss him, now and then, when she cared to let herself feel it. Like a stab under her breast, subtle yet sharp, up-angled towards the beating heart.
“All men do love their dams, ‘tis true enough,” Collyer agreed, eyes momentarily wistful, as though he might be thinking on his own. “Yet given these mysterious items must surely rest somewhere on the ocean floor, how do you propose to retrieve them?”
Tante Ankolee laughed. “With help from one who know such places intimately, ‘course. And here him come now.”
On much the same instant, something slammed ‘gainst the ship’s side from just underwater with a combination of wet thunk and unnatural rasp; a squeal of protest resulted, similarly liquid, and brim-full of hate. With almost comic speed, meanwhile, Collyer swerved to grab for his discarded sword-belt and drew, taking up a protective stance between it—whatever it might prove to be—and Tante Ankolee, who felt a genuine softening at the sight: Brave man, this, along wi’ all him other capacity. Brave, foolish young man.
But: “Step back, lest you do yaself a mischief,” she told him. “For in this matter, ‘tis really I should be the one t’ put meself ‘twixt you an’ harm’s way, given the power this t’ing you an’ I just call on wield, as well as the power give rise t’ it.”
“Madam, I’ve never run from danger in my life, no matter how unnatural. I do not propose to start now, even on your say-so.”
“Then I counsel you hold fast, Wilmot-boy, no matter what-all come up from the Sea’s own salty bosom—an’ let me do the talkin’ besides, fah Her sake, as well as yours.”
Even as she spoke, within lamentably easy reaching distance, Collyer watched one webbed gray hand rise to grasp at the ship’s railing, nailless pads digging deep, while—mere seconds later—another materialized to slap and strain likewise, beside it. With a groan of effort, something only roughly man-shaped hauled itself over the fragile wooden barrier to land, slippery yet four-square, on the folded-over “feet” of that haphazardly divided tail it called a pair of legs.
This, one might only assume, was a slightly more recent version of the creature Jerusalem Parry had once named Mister Dolomance—converted from shark to man, then back to shark, and insulted beyond measure to find itself once more caught midway through that first metamorphosis yet again. The shark-were turned its blunted parody of a face Tante Ankolee’s way, hissing through a bared grill of teeth piled on teeth (two rows apiece, top and bottom), but found her unimpressed by the gesture, to say the least.
“Fah!” she spat, as though to cough up the very taste of this predator-fish’s carrion breath. “Do nah dream ta ‘proach me, ya shiftless duppy! Did you truly t’ink yaself forever freed from magic’s reach, just ‘cause ya kill him who laid the spell what make a plaything of ya? For ‘tis nah so easy to ‘scape its grasp, on land or sea . . . no matter how hot ya hate, or sharp ya bite.”
Here the snarling hiss mounted to an angry teakettle shriek—yet though the mere sound of it sent Collyer a half-pace sidelong and his sword’s blade an inch or so higher, Tante Ankolee held her ground.