New Friend, Old Ocean

Chapter II

New Friend, Old Ocean

A day had passed since the ship set sail. The ocean stretched quiet in every direction, and a warm breeze crossed the deck without hurrying. In the mess hall, the smell of watery coffee and reheated bread did nothing to inspire optimism.

Rebecca stabbed something of indeterminate color with her fork and eyed it with suspicion.

"We're in the middle of the ocean... next time I'll just fish something myself," she muttered, dropping the fork onto the plate with a dull clang.

Across from her, Ciri had been talking nonstop for a good while, with that inexhaustible energy Rebecca still hadn't quite figured out. The girl gestured, changed voices, pointed to scars.

"...and that's how I got this one," said Ciri, pointing to a mark on her forearm with visible pride. "Fighting a hydra. Am I incredible or what?"

Rebecca, who had been nodding at more or less regular intervals, nodded again.

"Yes, yes... of course. You were incredible."

Ciri jumped in her seat, rattling the table.

"Yes! I knew you'd get it. I wasn't wrong to pick you as my new friend. I have a very good eye for these things."

Rebecca blinked.

"Wait. Did you say new friend?"

"That's right," Ciri answered, with the matter-of-fact tone of someone announcing something that has been obvious for a while.

Rebecca looked down at her plate. A warm discomfort crept up the back of her neck.

Now I feel bad for ignoring her, she thought.

✦ ✦ ✦

They went up to the deck. The crew was moving with a quiet urgency that needed no explanation: everyone was tightening ropes, picking up weapons, checking positions. Rebecca walked to the bow and looked ahead.

On the horizon, the sky had stopped being sky. A mass of black clouds covered everything, so dense it looked like a wall.

"Looks like we're heading into a storm," Rebecca said.

"Not just any storm," said Ciri, stepping up beside her. "That's the first ring of protection."

"Rings of protection?"

"The Island of the Summoners has three. What you're seeing looks like a storm, but it's just an illusion — designed to make ships turn around and sail away. What's truly dangerous comes after."

Rebecca felt her stomach do a small flip, though not from fear.

"And what comes after?"

Ciri smiled that half-smile Rebecca was already starting to recognize as a sign she wasn't going to get a straight answer.

"You'll see. I don't want to spoil the surprise."

Rebecca closed her right fist and drove it into her left palm.

"So things are about to get difficult. That's fine — I can handle whatever comes."

"That's my friend!" Ciri exclaimed.

✦ ✦ ✦

Inside the simulation zone, the spectacle was strange enough to be hard to process: the sky roared with thunder and lightning tore across the clouds from end to end, yet the water was completely still, flat as a mirror. No waves, no wind. Just that savage noise from above while the ship moved through it without a tremor.

"Wow," Rebecca said quietly.

The crew had spread out across the entire deck. Spears, swords, shotguns, rifles — each person gripped their weapon with the focus of someone who has done this before. Several passengers had armed themselves as well; others scrambled below to the sleeping quarters. Nobody judged them.

"Stay sharp! I don't want anyone losing their life today," Silverbeard bellowed from the helm.

The ship came out the other side of the illusion. The sun returned all at once, so bright it was blinding.

"Don't close your eyes!" someone shouted.

Rebecca scanned the water in every direction, muscles taut, waiting.

She didn't have to wait long.

Something burst from the sea and landed on deck in one sharp movement. A man fired his shotgun at point-blank range and the creature's head exploded before it had fully risen. The body collapsed onto the wet wood, leaving a dark trail.

"Here they come," said Ciri, very still.

"What is that thing?" Rebecca asked.

"A drowned one. And where there's one, there are hundreds."

From the depths of the water came a sound unlike anything familiar: a kind of wet, rhythmic dragging that multiplied, drew closer, and raised the hairs on the back of your neck. Then came the attack.

Dozens of grey bodies leapt onto the ship from every side at once. The crack of gunfire filled the air. Rebecca kicked one that lunged at her just before it reached her, and the impact sent it back into the water.

Beside her, Ciri moved with a precision that didn't match her size. Every cut was clean, deliberate, without a single wasted motion.

One of the drowned was closing in on Ciri from behind while her eyes were fixed on the ones ahead. Rebecca didn't think — she spun and knocked it down with a punch before it got within a meter.

"Thanks, friend," said Ciri without turning around, as if she had seen it anyway.

"That's what we're here for," Rebecca replied, noticing with some surprise that she was enjoying herself.

Silverbeard pushed the ship to full speed. The bow plowed through the drowned that got in the way and sent them scattering like pins, but more kept coming.

"Hold on! Nobody goes overboard!" the old man roared, with a laugh that didn't quite fit the situation.

Rebecca saw several of the drowned making for the stairs that led below deck. She planted herself in their path.

"They're not getting through," she said, and knocked them down one by one with the same methodical efficiency one uses to shut windows before a storm.

Thirty minutes. Time went elastic — gunshots, creaking wood, the smell of salt and blood. Exhaustion was beginning to show in everyone: movements slowing, breathing coming harder.

That was when Rebecca heard a different kind of scream.

One of the drowned had sunk its teeth into a crew member's shoulder. The teeth were serrated, like saw blades, and the wound they left when it let go was both deep and clean at once, in that unsettling way that serious wounds sometimes are. The man went down.

Rebecca ran over, kicked the creature with everything she had left, and sent it over the railing. Then she dropped to her knees beside the injured man.

"My shoulder!" he screamed, eyes wide.

"Calm down. I'm not letting you die."

The bleeding was heavy. Rebecca pressed the wound with both hands while she assessed what she had available. She tore a strip from his shirt, fashioned a makeshift bandage, and tied it tight over the shoulder. The man kept moaning, but stopped screaming.

A sound behind her. She caught it in the corner of her eye: another drowned approaching with the unhurried confidence of something that thinks it has the advantage.

"Can't you see I'm busy?" said Rebecca, and without fully standing she twisted and drove an uppercut into it that sent it flying backwards.

She went back to the injured man. Her hands were covered in someone else's blood. A chill ran down her spine, brief but real. She shook it off and kept working.

From the helm, Silverbeard surveyed the scene with a furrowed brow. Something about this wave wasn't right: too many, too fast. He called a sailor to take the wheel and stepped out of the cabin.

"Looks like the old man has to save the youngsters' skins again," he announced, somewhere between amused and resigned.

Then, in a quieter voice but with a precise cadence — like someone reciting something learned long ago — he said:

Praedo maritimus.

A red aura came to life in his hands. It wasn't exactly light: it was something denser, older, pulsing with a rhythm of its own. The aura took shape: a flintlock pistol from another century, its grip worn smooth by the hands of many owners. The old man aimed it at the sky and pulled the trigger.

The bullet came out red. Halfway through its arc it fragmented into hundreds of projectiles that scattered in every direction with the precision of something that owes nothing to chance. Each one found its mark. The drowned fell in silence, one after another, without ceremony.

There was one second of absolute stillness.

Then Ciri jumped.

"The old man's still got it!" she shouted.

"That's how it's done, Captain!" came a chorus from the deck.

Rebecca stared at the old man with an expression she couldn't quite name.

"I never would have imagined that strange old man was capable of something like that," she admitted quietly.

✦ ✦ ✦

They cleared the danger zone. The attacks tapered off and then stopped entirely, and the ship sailed again on calm water.

Rebecca dropped onto the deck with her legs stretched out and her arms open wide, staring up at the sky. Her shoulders burned, her hands felt heavy, and her throat was so dry that swallowing was uncomfortable.

"I haven't had a workout like that in a long time," she said to no one in particular.

Ciri appeared above her, looking down with her hands on her hips and no visible sign of exhaustion.

"You're very strong, Rebecca. At first I didn't think you'd last, but I was wrong."

Rebecca looked up at her from the ground.

"How are you still standing after all that?"

"Haha. If you're that tired, you should sleep. Tomorrow we hit the third ring, and that one's on a different level. Remember: the fake storm is the first, the drowned are the second, and the third..." she paused in a way Rebecca already recognized as theatrical, "...is still ahead."

Rebecca let her head fall back and looked at the sky. Clouds drifted slowly beneath a sunset that soaked everything in red and orange — the kind of light that makes the world look older than it is.

And then, without looking for it, the memory came.

She was small. Dirt on her knees and scrapes on her elbows, and someone was saying something to her while running a large, steady hand over her head.

"There's no use pushing yourself past your limits. Knowing how to rest, knowing how to let go — that's part of getting stronger too."

"Rebecca." Ciri's voice brought her back. "Come in, Rebecca. You still there?"

Rebecca blinked, slowly sat up, and got to her feet.

"You're right," she said, with a calm smile. "I'm going to sleep like a log. But first I need to eat something, or I'll pass out."

"In that case, let's have dinner together. I've got a secret stash I know you're going to like," Ciri announced, rubbing her hands together with a conspirator's grin.

"No way... Burgers? In the middle of the ocean?"

"That's right. And since we're eating in the cabin, no jealous person will be able to complain."

✦ ✦ ✦

Dinner was the best part of the day.

When night fell, the two of them were tucked into their bunks in the small cabin they shared, the ship swaying gently beneath the swell. The motion was steady, hypnotic — like being rocked very slowly.

Rebecca was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

Ciri watched her for a moment from the top bunk, propped up on one elbow.

She's so exhausted she can't even feel the movement, she thought. And then, almost without meaning to: Why does she want to go to the Island of the Summoners? I could ask her... though maybe that would be too intrusive.

She decided not to ask. Not yet.

The ship kept moving through the silence as the night closed over the ocean.

✦ ✦ ✦

The next morning, Rebecca opened her eyes with the rare sensation of having slept exactly the right amount.

"That was a good night's sleep," she said, and meant it.

The top bunk was empty. Rebecca stepped out into the corridor, looked both ways, found no one, and headed up to the deck.

"Good morning!" she called out, and received a collective response that swept from bow to stern.

The breeze was fresh and the sea was still calm. She walked to the bow and found Ciri exactly where she least expected: standing at the very tip of the vessel, balanced over open air with dozens of meters of water below, with the ease of someone who has been doing it their whole life.

"There you are. What are you doing up there?"

"Just enjoying the view."

Rebecca decided not to press the point about danger. With Ciri, she sensed, that conversation wouldn't go anywhere.

"When do we reach the third ring?" she asked.

Ciri crouched at the tip of the bow, unbothered.

"The third ring isn't a threat... at least not the same kind as the second."

"What is it, then?"

The girl was quiet for a moment, as if choosing her words carefully.

"Let's just say that, in short... the third ring tests each person in a different way."

Rebecca watched her, waiting for more. But Ciri had already turned back to the horizon, with the look of someone who has said exactly what they meant to say and has no intention of adding anything else.