A valley in the sea.
III
The bowl-shaped depression in the ocean’s otherwise unbroken expanse was large enough to hold most of Hamacassar. Through the fulminating winds they could see that the ocean sloped gently down into the glassy green basin on all four sides. Attempting to analyze the impossibility, Stanager would have ordered the Grömsketter hard to starboard to avoid it, but there was no time. One moment the ship was thundering westward, driven by gales whipped into line by Ehomba’s parrying blade. Then its bow was tilting downward into a trough the likes of which no sailor aboard had ever seen.
The concavity lay not between the crests of two waves, but between four uniquely stable oceanic slopes. Several women and not a few of the men held their breath as the ship’s keel began to slide downward at a perilously sharp angle. As she descended she picked up speed, though not a great deal. It was not so very different from sailing upon level waters, save for the fact that a mariner had to guard against sliding along the deck until he fetched up against the bow.
The unrelenting gusts that had been flailing the ship from astern immediately began to moderate in intensity. Pounding squalls became gentle breezes. Ehomba estimated that the floor of the valley lay little more than a hundred feet below the surrounding surface of the ocean proper. Not a great difference, but one sufficient to provide them with a safe haven while the winds liberated from the mysterious bottle blew themselves out overhead.