In the Night Garden

Grog belched. “Well, we haven’t got any choice, have we?”

“You old trout!” a voice came from belowdecks, quickly followed by a body—a woman with the tail of a wolf, the haunches of a deer, and bright blue wings. Magadin strode across the ship to the Magyr’s tub, her gray eyes blazing.

“I thought I told you to see my ship safe home! You brought her back here to get chewed to pieces?” she bellowed.

“What? Look, this lot kidnapped me!” Grog looked away, nervously, picking at the scales of her violet tail. “I was going to take it back, I swear. But they made me come back, and shouldn’t you thank me for keeping her bow and stern attached as well as I have? And besides, I hardly expected you to survive, did I? And dead women don’t complain.”

Khaloud frowned. “We fished her out of the bile half dead, but taking on monsters is a sacred duty left to us by old Tomomo—we pressed her into service, and she is with us now.”

Magadin hooked her shaggy arm around the Djinn’s smoky waist. “It is pleasant to be part of a crew, and not manning every sail yourself. Part of a crew and not a prisoner, not a maiden, not cargo. I died in the whale and washed up on the deck of paradise. This is the best death I could have asked for, and I hope to stay dead for a long while.” She smiled, and her tail wagged, and there was no weariness left in the lines of her face.

“Now that we’re all family,” growled Eyvind, “hadn’t we better see about getting ourselves retched out of this beast?”

“An excellent suggestion,” the Saint said.

Within a few hours, both ships had drawn back through the sea of bile, close to the mouth of the Echeneis. Eyvind and Grog had stayed aboard the beast-maid’s ship, while Sigrid and Snow were huddled close with the pirates. Baleen hung in the distance like a glossy door, and they could hear the sea crashing outside.

“First we must raise the monster,” said the Saint in a hushed voice. “Khaloud?”

The Djinn drew a dark, curved bow back almost into the shape of a full moon, and lit the arrow from her belly. She fired it directly up into the whale-turtle’s mouth—and for a moment, it simply disappeared into the mist and there was no sound. But then—a dull clunking noise echoed through the mouth and the creature moaned in pain, ascending through the waters to destroy whatever had troubled it.

“How can we be sure they will hatch?” Snow whispered, clutching Sigrid’s hand to calm her heart.

The Saint looked grim and glad all at once, drawing a dagger from a sheath bound to her thigh. “We aren’t going to let them dawdle. The eggs should be weak enough now for them to break out—or for us to break in. Get yourself a knife, girl.”

Grog hollered at Eyvind to drag her to the side of the ship and began to smash the barnacle-eggs with hurled harpoons. Every creature on the Maidenhead was slashing, clawing, cutting, crushing the eggs. Khaloud flicked her fingers at one after the other, engulfing them in little orange flames. The sickening crunch of it made Snow gag, and the smell was worse, like overripe meat. At first it was slow, just a few black infants hopping out of their shells—but then the roaring sound of thousands of wings filled the mouth of the Echeneis, doubled and tripled with echoes.

It was the Saint who laughed first—and then

the Djinn joined her. They saw, and soon all could see, a great flock of crows rising from the ruined barnacles, their huge wings flapping noisily, like pages turning. More and more of them shattered their eggs of their own accord, eager to join their siblings. Countless wings beat against the wall of baleen, the arched roof, the cheeks of their prison. The mouth was filled with them as if with a draught of fouled wine, and the monster began to roar in rage, a guttural sound like the earth opening.

And it did open. The Echeneis’s jaws cracked slightly, and a blinding sliver of light seared across the two ships. The sliver became a wash as the mouth opened wide and the sea rushed in, sparkling blue and gray and white, buffeting the ships on its waves. There was a great cheer from the crew of the Maidenhead, and the sails were drawn tight. Eyvind wrestled the rigging of the other vessel, and when the sea flowed out again, they rode the crest of the foam out into the sun and the world again.

With them, thousands upon thousands of gleaming black crows streamed out of the mouth of the Echeneis, heralding the ships and following them, soaring up and out of the whale like an exhalation of dark angels. The sound of their flapping wings was like grapeshot; the sunlight caught their feathers and glowed deep violet against the pale sky. The monster groaned, almost a whimper, and sank again below the surface as the ships sped away from it with taut sails.

And so, as quickly as the birth began, it was finished. The red ship and the brown floated together in the broad light some space away from the place where the monster had submerged, lashed together so that farewells could be made. A few lingering crows circled overhead.

The sun was setting over the sea, its light pooled over the water, unfurling itself like a glove, staining the water a perfect shade of gold, as if a lady had dropped her best necklace into the depths. The golden light flooded over the deck of the Maidenhead, and Eyvind’s eyes filled with tears.

“The virgin was devoured,” he said wonderingly, gesturing at the red ship, “the saints will go west with henless eggs, and the sea,” his voice tightened, “has gone to gold.”

Eyvind seemed to shimmer and to wriggle, like a worm spasming on a hook—and then there was no Eyvind at all any longer. A great white bear stood in his place, tears streaming from its large black eyes. Its fur was smooth and snowy, illuminated with light and sea spray. The timbers groaned under the sudden weight. Sigrid cried out and crossed the plank from the red ship to the Witch’s Kiss, sinking to her knees and touching his furry face.

The bear closed his eyes, and laid his head heavily in his lover’s lap.

“It’s happened.” He sighed, his voice changing to something deeper and rougher now that it was his own again, more growl than tongue. “And now we can go home. At last, we can go home. We will go to Skin-Peddler, and you will ask for your skin again, and we will go back to the snows and the wilds, together. It’s over.”

Sigrid took her hands away slowly. “No, Eyvind. I cannot. I am not Ulla, and I will never be again. I go with my Lady, as I was meant to. The maiden, the bear, and the girl in gray. You must find your own way now.”

“Do not leave me, Bear-wife. All I have done has been for you.” He lifted his limpid eyes to her, stricken.

“All you have done, you have done for yourself, so that you could live again as you thought you should. I cannot be a part of that dream—all I have done I have done by instinct and desire, save for what I have done for her. She is the object of my Quest, and I cannot reject it now. I feel as though I am being split apart again, my skins warring with each other. But I’m sorry, my love. There is just no getting any of it back.”

She stood and stroked his coarse white head, bent and kissed it, her tears wetting the fur through. He begged her, and clutched at her uselessly with his clumsy paws.

“Where will I go? What will I do?” he whispered hopelessly.

Sigrid shook her head, unable to give an answer. She crossed back to the red ship with its carpet of broken shells. The Saint embraced her, and Sigrid came away from that embrace glowing like a new bride.