Ashen - Chapter 3: The Black Ophelia

Chapter Three - The Black Ophelia

The tortle led Ceru through the stacked shelves of the Spelldocks, up and down stairs and ladders, through crowds of sailors, dockworkers, and guild merchants loading and offloading ship after ship in the busy port. They passed by and through crowds of people from every race, each more exotic than the last.

    Ceru was aware that the ‘Verse was filled with more races than she’d ever encountered, but being here, walking through the City of Brass amidst actual elves, and dwarves, and the blue-skinned vedalken, and all manner of creature - it was more than reading about them, or listening to tavern stories from old-timers who probably never actually set foot among the stars.

    She was brought up short when she came across a pair of five-foot tall owls with massive wingspans, and long, flowing robes of cotton and canvas. The birdmen turned their heads in her direction. Round, black eyes watched her intently.

    “Hello,” she said in Elvish, as Oquee tugged at her shoulder. One of the owls nodded and the pair returned to their conversation.

    “Best not to interfere with the Aarakocra,” Oquee said hurrying her down the docks.

    “But those were Knights of the Zephyr,” she protested. She was glancing back at the pair. Zephyr Knights were said to be among the finest warriors in the ‘Verse - Guardians not just of the Royal City of Aaqa, but of justice and peace throughout the many worlds. This was exactly the sort of person she was hoping to learn from. She continued to follow the tortle, but she made a mental note to ask him about the Zephyr Knights, and she told herself she would probably have to travel to Illiar, their homeworld, to find out if they would train her.

    And then, they found it. Moored to the dock, but floating free in the void.

    The Black Ophelia.

    At least, she assumed it was their ship. It was built of Zakharan Ebony, wood so black that the hull took on a dull, polished sheen. The sails too were dark, though not nearly as black as the hull. They’d probably dulled and turned grey with age and hard use. It was a Quelyan Galleon in design, aside from the color; and the ship was ornamented in a manner similar to the City behind her. Intricate carvings in the trim of the bulkheads, and all around the ship was decorated with piping and inlaid brass, beaten and polished to a shine.

    The only thing anchoring the massive ship to the dock, which otherwise jutted out into space, were the mooring lines, and a single, thin, gopher wood gangplank, which Oquee mounted without hesitation.

    Ceru looked down at her feet on that narrow, wooden ramp, and at the stars beneath them, and a half-dozen boats or ships all similarly moored at various docks on the lower levels. She was gripped with that same vertigo she’d felt up top. The sensation of falling that threatened to overtake her balance and fling her off into the Void. She reached up and put a hand on Oquee’s hard shell for balance, then looked up at the boat to try and center herself.

    The deck was made of that same gopher wood, brown and light like any other ship she’d been on. Standing on that deck, at the top of the gangplank, stood a massive, man-sized dwarf, with short tusks and a wide, flat nose. Here again was another of those many races that Ceru had heard about in myth and whispers, but never before seen.

    She’d heard that the orcs sometimes intermarried with their long-time enemies the dwarves, and Old Marl Jonas, back in Lagos had said they sometimes mated with other races too. It seemed odd, somehow, that she would meet a half-orc before she ever met an orc.

    This one was thick - stout, with tree-trunk limbs and a massive, greenish belly barely contained behind his button-down shirt. The dense, coarse hair of his chest stuck out from beneath his open collar, but his head and beard were completely shaved, after the manner of the dwarves. His eyes were black, like the hull of the ship they now stood on.

    “Welcome aboard the Black Ophelia,” he said in a gruff, somehow sour voice. “Of course I recognize you, sir tortle.” He bowed slightly, and extended a hand in greetings. “It’s a pleasure to have you with us. I am Bob, the Quartermaster.”

    “Oquee,” the Tortle said, introducing himself, and then stepping aside so that Ceru could step off that accursed plank, he added, “and this is Cerulean Crowe, a human.”

    “Bless the Burning Step,” the half-orc said, trying to hide the way he was eyeing Ceru up and down in a distinctly unsavory manner. He actually licked one of his short tusks. “It’s good to have you both aboard.” Then his back straightened, and he called sharply behind himself to a red-skinned man in a long black coat with ruby and copper trim, “Captain?”

    The genasi turned toward them, his angular face wreathed in a mane of ginger hair and a big, flowing beard that almost looked as though it were actually aflame. He too had a gruff and surly air about him, but when he laid eyes on Oquee, his expression softened. He approached the trio. “You’re the Oracle that Bedget mentioned?”

    “I am,” Oquee replied, maneuvering himself between Bob and Ceru under the pretense of presenting her to the Captain, “and this is my traveling companion, Cerulean Crowe.”

    The Captain nodded disinterest, without taking his focus from Oquee. “Good, good. We’ve long thought about adding another Mage to the Seat. Have you flown before?” Oquee replied that he had, and the Captain introduced himself as Coalbrand, before quizzing the Tortle about his training and experience.

    Ceru felt mildly slighted by the whole affair, but it was understandable. Mages are important in the black, maybe even more important than anywhere else. One of the sailors on her last ship had said that “Mages are the Wind,” which confused her and filled her with a kind of awe all at the same time.

    Instead of being drawn into a conversation that didn’t concern her, she let her eyes drift across the deck. Everything was so similar to the way ships were built and manned back home that it made the differences stand out like glaring obscenities. Ropes were anchored to the rails at regular intervals, but instead of stretching up into the masts like normal rigging, these were coiled, and fitted with slip-knots, presumably so one could step off the ship into the void while still tethered to safety.

    Overhead, the masts and sails were straight and angular, like a child’s toy ship, rather than a real vessel meant to operate in the winds on the open sea.

    There were only a handful of cannons, but she spied ballistae, and a catapult. With the exception of the catapult, these were positioned strangely and angled all wrong if you were on a sea-going vessel. Some pointed upwards or down, while the cannons were on great four-directional swivels.

    The crew was just as bizarre to her groundling eyes. There were actually a handful of Quelyans - humans and halflings - which was only strange because of their apparent absence in the City. Shoulder-to-shoulder they worked with genasi, like the Captain, a couple more dwarves, some kind of furry little hamster-man, and who knew what else was lurking below decks.

    No praedaren, though, which was a relief. She didn’t expect to meet many of the shark-blood scourge this far away from the WorldSea, but then again, she’d never expected to find herself so far away from home either.

    None of them were Guilded Sailors, and they wore no uniforms, so they belonged to no navies. They worked well together, however, with efficiency and the easily apparent camaraderie that only comes from long voyages at sea - or in space, she corrected herself. None of them wore pirate brands or traitor’s marks (and she was looking for these). With the absence of obvious pirates, she thought she’d be more comforted by the presence of her own people among this motley crew; but she also wondered to herself how different these humankin must be to find themselves so comfortable in such surroundings.

    Would she also find comfort here? Maybe she would; but right now, she stood alone in the Void.

    The Captain was detailing the pilot’s duty rotation, and finished by inviting Oquee to dinner in his cabin so that he might get to know the other mages.

    “And the archeologist,” he said in a low whisper, dripping with distrust.

    “What about my new friend here,” Oquee asked, gesturing to a rapidly shrinking Ceru. She was shaking her head immediately.

    “That wouldn’t be appropriate,” she and the Captain echoed together.

    This appeared to catch Coalbrand by surprise, and possibly for the first time, he turned his eyes to the Quelyan woman. He managed to stop his gaze from wandering, before turning his face away and shouting for someone called Tormund.

    A shirtless, barrel chested dwarf jogged up from where he’d been standing back, clearly waiting for this call. He had so much hair on his body he might be able to cover his beardless, bald head if he shaved his chest and shoulders, and where there wasn’t hair, he was decorated in intricate, knotted block-patterned tattoos like the desert dwarves of Zakhar.

    “Show our shellbacked mage here, and his human friend around the ship,” Captain Coalbrand said. “Then tell Bob and Longtail to cast off the warps and ready the sail.” He raised his head a bit, as if he were addressing the air, or the sails themselves, and said, “we’ve enough crew, Umpip, and we’re ready to depart this cursed rock. We sail as soon as we’re loose of the dock lines.”

    Ceru looked around for the warps - the mooring lines that would have been cast out into the void and left to dangle. When the ship had come in, some of these sailors would have scrambled to grab the warps and used them to draw the ship into port. She’d seen it when she first arrived and had told herself to mark it well. It was likely to be something she’d have to do herself one day.

    “Welcome aboard,” Tormund, the dwarf said. He maneuvered himself between and behind them, and put one meaty hand on each of their shoulders. “Where do you come from, what do you do?”

    With that distinct tortle pleasantness, Oquee craned his neck around to look the dwarf in his eyes, “I am a mage,” he said, “my friend here is a sailor.”

    “I - uh,” Ceru added, “I’m afraid I’m a little green, but I grew up on watercraft, and I spent most of my time in the rigging on my first spelljammer.”

    “All right,” Tormund said, “All. Right. And don’t you worry, missy. We’ll make a fine spacer out of you. Mark my words. Let’s get you settled in though, yeah?"

    He turned them gently, so they were looking out toward the bow, “every sailor that ever sailed thinks the boat they’re on is the best boat in the sky, but they’re all deluded. This is the Black Ophelia, the finest galleon that ever flew the spaceways.” He laughed to himself. It was a deep, throaty sound that made Ceru think he was purposefully pretending his voice was higher pitched than was natural.

    He turned them again and they were facing the outer bulkhead and a pair of ornate, wooden doors. “Through these doors are the officer’s quarters and the great cabin. Got no reason to be in there unless you’re sittin’ in the big seat, or you’re in trouble, or you’re cleanin’ somat, or you’re invited, I guess. I don’t know. Stay out of it.”

    Stepping in front of them, he asked, “You both been out before? I mean, you know what the fo’c’sle is and aft? The poop deck and all that?” They both nodded. “Good.” Pointing to the poop deck. “Bridge is up there. Do not touch the wheel.”

    He leaned in close to Ceru, smelling of dried sweat, honey, and rum. “Do not. Touch. The Wheel. Got it?” And then he winked, which made her smile despite his condescension. It was pretty easy for anyone to hire on a ship like this, and the dwarf had no way of knowing whether or not she was an able hand until he’d put her to work. He’d probably sailed with his share of buffoons, so she didn't begrudge him the sentiment.

    He led them below deck, through any number of cabins and passages, up and down various ladders in a labyrinthine and circuitous route that seemed to Ceru to be designed to make sure she had no idea where she was going.

    Back home, on Quelya, she’d seen the big Brigantines and the Galleons; but she’d spent most of her life on her father’s caravel, and they were all tiny compared to the Ophelia. They called her a Galleon, but she was massive. Crawling through her decks was like navigating the dwarven tunnels in Lagos.

    Along the way, they met all manner of crew. Like up on deck, they encountered mostly genasi, probably from the City of Brass; but also dwarves and men, a handful of halflings and even a gnome. There was a bizarre creature called Longtail that was a cat that stood upright like a woman, covered in sable fur with a long tail and whiskers. The dwarf told this one to find the Bo’sun and clear the warp, so they could cast off. There was also a strange, ashen-faced man who remained silent, and who looked human to Ceru, but was most definitely not from Quelya.

    In the galley, they met the cook and sampled some of his jerky. Then they were led below to the crew’s quarters, a large open deck, with a handful of racks - small beds built right into the bulkhead - hammocks, cots, and soft palets to sleep on. Here and there were small, locked personal chests and old crates, but most of the crew’s personal belongings were just wrapped in canvas or strewn about on their sleeping linens.

    Tormund turned to look at them, he had a strange expression on his ruddy, beardless face. This seemed important to him.

    “Mostly, you just find a place to sleep that isn’t taken. You’re the newest, so you get the worst pick. Someone else comes on, they get a worse pick than you. Someone leaves, it’s pretty much first-come-first-sleeps; and once you sleep somewhere, it’s your space ‘till you give it up.

    “Now, that don’t mean you can just sleep on someone else’s gear while they’re ashore or what-have-you. It’s about Respect. You give it, you get it, savvy?” They both nodded and he said, “dump your gear in a corner and let’s get topside. Figure out where to sleep when you can see what’s taken.”

    In the end, Ceru remembered where the head was, and the galley, and she knew of course, if she found a ladder and climbed it, she’d find the weather deck eventually. The rest would come with time. Oquee was quiet, but his tortoise's face bore a contemplative grin and he seemed to be listening intently, hanging on Tormund’s every word.