The troll looked so mournful that Vimes felt moved to give him a cheerful slap on the back.
‘Then let’s stop them now, eh?’ he said, shaking his hand hurriedly to stop the stinging.
The other ship was so close they could see the sailors working feverishly on the deck. The mainsail billowed in the lamplight.
Detritus raised the bow.
A ball of blue–green light glowed on the tip of the arrow. The troll stared at it.
Then green fire ran down the masts and, when it hit the deck, burst into dozens of green balls that rolled, cracking and spitting, over the planks.
‘Dey’re usin’ magic?’ said Detritus. A green flame spluttered–over his helmet.
‘What is this, Jenkins?’ said Vimes.
‘It ain’t magic, it’s worse’n magic,’ said the captain, hurrying forward. ‘All right, lads, get those sails down right now!’
‘You leave them where they are!’ shouted Vimes.
‘You know what this is?’
‘It dun’t even feel warm,’ said Detritus, poking the flame on the crossbow.
‘Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it! That’s St Ungulant’s Fire, that is! It means we’re going to die in a dreadful storm!’
Vimes looked up. Clouds were racing across––No, they were pouring into the sky in great twisting billows, like ink streaming into water. Blue light flashed somewhere inside them. The ship lurched.
‘Look, we got to lose some sail!’ shouted Jenkins. ‘That’s the only way–’
‘No–one touches anything!’ shouted Vimes. Green fire skimmed along the tops of the waves now. ‘Detritus, arrest any man who touches anything!’
‘Right.’
‘We want to go fast, after all,’ Vimes said, above the hissing and the distant crackle of thunder.
Jenkins gawped at him as the ship lunged beneath them.
‘You’re mad! Have you any idea what happens to a ship that tries to– You haven’t got any idea, have you? This ain’t normal weather! You have to ride it out careful! You can’t try to run ahead of it!’
Something slippery landed on Detritus’s head and bounced onto the deck, where it tried to slither away.
‘And now it’s raining fish!’ Jenkins moaned.
The clouds formed a yellow haze, lit almost constantly by the lightning. And it was warm. That was the strangest thing. The wind howled like a sack full of cats and the waves were turning into walls on either side of the ship, but the air felt like an oven.
‘Look, even the Klatchians are reducing sail!’ shouted Jenkins, in a shower of shrimp.
‘Good. We’ll catch them up.’
‘Mad! Ouch!’
Something hard rebounded from his hat, hit the rail and rolled to a stop by Vimes’s feet.
It was a brass knob.
‘Oh, no,’ moaned Jenkins, putting his arms over his head. ‘Now it’s bloody bedsteads again!’
The captain of the Klatchian ship was not an argumentative man when he was anywhere near 71–hour
Ahmed. He just looked at the straining sails and calculated his chances of Paradise.
‘Perhaps the dog who cut the sail loose did us a favour!’ he shouted, above the roar of the wind.
Ahmed said nothing. He kept looking back. The occasional burst of electric storm light showed the ship behind, aflame with green light.
Then he looked at the cold fire streaming behind their own masts.
‘Can you see that light on the edge of the flames?’ he said.
‘My lord?’
‘Can you, man?’
‘Er… no…’
‘Of course you can’t! But can you see where the light isn’t?’
The captain stared at him and then looked up again in terrified obedience. And there was somewhere where the light wasn’t. As the fizzing green tongues waved in the wind they seemed to be edged with… blackness, perhaps, or a moving hole in space.
‘That’s octarine!’ shouted Ahmed, as another wave sloshed over the deck. ‘Only wizards can see it! There’s magic in these storms! That’s why the weather is so bad!’
The ship screamed in every joint as it hit the waves again.
‘We’re coming right out of the water!’ wept Jenkins. ‘We’re just going from crest to crest!’
‘Good! It won’t be so bumpy!’ shouted Vimes. ‘We should pick up speed again now we’ve got those bedsteads over the side! Does it often rain bedsteads out here?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I’m not a nautical man!’
‘No, rains of bedsteads are not an everyday occurrence! Nor are coal scuttles!’ Jenkins added, as something black crashed off a rail and over the side. ‘We just get the normal stuff, you know! Rain! Snow! Sleet! Fish!’
Another squall blew across the bounding boat and the deck was suddenly covered with flashing silver.
‘Back to fish!’ shouted Vimes. ‘That’s better, surely?’
‘No! It’s worse!’
‘Why!’
Jenkins held up a tin.
‘These are sardines!’
The ship thumped into another wave, groaned, and took flight again.
The cold green fire was everywhere. Every nail of the deck sprouted its flame, every rope and ladder had its green outline.
And the feeling crept over Vimes that it was holding the ship together. He wasn’t at all sure that it was just light. It moved too purposefully. It crackled, but it didn’t sting. It looked as though it was having fun
The ship landed. Water washed over Vimes.
‘Captain Jenkins!’
‘Yes?’
‘Why’re we playing with this wheel? It’s not as if the rudder’s in the water!’
They let go. The spokes blurred for a moment, and then stopped as the fire wrapped itself around them.
Then it rained cake.
The Watch had tried to make themselves comfortable in the hold, but there were difficulties. There wasn’t any area of floor which at some point in every ten seconds wasn’t an area of wall.
Nevertheless, someone was snoring.
‘How can anyone sleep in this?’ said Reg Shoe.
‘Captain Carrot can,’ said Cheery. She was hacking at something with her axe.
Carrot had wedged himself into a corner. Occasionally he mumbled something, and shifted position.
‘Like a baby. Beats me how he’s managing it,’ said Reg Shoe. ‘Of course, any minute this thing is going to fall apart.’
‘Yes, but dat shouldn’t worry you, should it?’ said Detritus. ‘On account of you bein’ dead already?’
‘So? I end up at the bottom of the sea knee–deep in whale droppings? And it’ll be a long walk home in the dark. Not to mention the problems if a shark tries to eat me.’
‘I shall fear not. According to the Testament of Mezerek, the fishermen Nonpo spent four days in the belly of a giant fish,’ said Constable Visit.
The thunder seemed particularly loud in the silence.
‘Washpot, are we talking miracles here?’ said Reg eventually. ‘Or just a very slow digestive process?’
‘You would be better employed considering the state of your immortal soul than making jokes,’ said Constable Visit severely.
‘It’s the state of my immortal body that’s worrying me,’ said Reg.
‘I have a leaflet here which will bring you considerable–’ Visit began.
‘Washpot, is it big enough to be folded into a boat that’ll save us all?’
Constable Visit pounced on the opening. ‘Aha, yes, metaphorically it is–’
‘Hasn’t this ship got a lifeboat?’ said Cheery hurriedly. ‘I’m sure I saw one when we came on.’
‘Yeah… lifeboat,’ said Detritus.
‘Anyone want a sardine?’ said Cheery. ‘I’ve managed to get a tin open.’
‘Lifeboat,’ Detritus repeated. He sounded like someone exploring an unpleasant truth. ‘Like… a big, heavy thing which would’ve slowed us down… ?’
‘Yes, I saw it, I know I did,’ said Reg.
‘Yeah… dere was one,’ said Detritus. ‘Dat was a lifeboat, was it?’
‘At the very least we ought to get somewhere sheltered and drop the anchor.’
‘Yeah… anchor…’ mused Detritus. ‘Dat’s a big thing kinda hooks on, right?’
‘Of course.’
‘Kinda heavy thing?’
‘Obviously!’
‘Right. An’… er… if it was dropped a long time ago, on accounta bein’ heavy, dat wouldn’t do us much good now?’
‘Hardly.’ Reg Shoe glared through the hatchway. The sky was a dirty yellow blanket, criss–crossed with fire. Thunder boomed continuously.
‘I wonder how far the barometer’s sunk?’ he said.
‘All der way,’ said Detritus gloomily. ‘Trust me on dis.’
It was in the nature of a D’reg to open doors carefully. There was generally an enemy on the other side. Sooner or later.
He saw the collar lying on the floor, right by a little fountain of water trickling from the hull, and swore under his breath.
Ahmed waited just a moment, and then pushed the door back quietly. It rattled against the wall.
‘I don’t intend to harm you,’ he said to the gloom of the bilges. ‘If that was my intention, by now you’d–’
She wished she’d used the wolf. There would have been no problem with the wolf. That was the problem. She’d easily win, but then she’d be nervy and frightened. A human could stay on top of that. A wolf might not. She’d do the wrong things, panicky things, animal things.
She pushed him hard as she dropped down from above the door, somersaulted backwards, slammed the door and turned the key.