In fact, I wasn't sure I understood what could keep it afloat. We passed bulkheads of metal and stone--stone--some open, showing rows and rows of beds in what I took to be the crew's quarters. Now, to be fair, I don't understand boats at all, really. I know they have to be lighter than or less dense than the water around them, and so it's got something to do with something called ballast. Ballast, I believe, is a magical system of... let's say tubes, or compartments, that scoots air in and out to adjust for how much stuff a boat is carrying.

  This I am pretty well-versed on, actually, from watching Dane's dad play those submarine video games on a decrepit old computer. He'd get little full-motion video clips of guys with familiar red flashing lights shouting urgent reports about sonar picking up an enemy contact or something or another being damaged and flooded. When he rose and dove, that was a ballast thing, I'm pretty sure. But how a submarine miraculously makes air appear in its ballast a mile or two below surface is not something I guess I'll ever understand.

  I pushed open one of the doors--hatches, I guess I should say, thicker than my whole body, with a great big wagon wheel for a doorknob--and the room beyond flooded with white-gold light. It was warm and clean and bright as morning, like someone had switched on the day in that chamber.

  "Oh," said Constitution. "You figured out how to do that?"

  I was holding the golden lantern.

  "I did?" Lost in my reverie, I hadn't seen it appear. I hadn't reached for it, not intentionally. It just happened. And what a help it was on the dark side of the ship, as the light failed outside.

  The word "Crew's Lounge" formed like the opening credits of a film, then dissipated. My lantern purged darkness from the room, but it wasn't harsh light, it didn't hurt my eyes.

  "You handle this one," said Constitution, slapping my back in a way that was supposed to be reassuring. "I think I hear something."

  The lounge was tight quarters, so to speak, but paradise for a sailor on the high seas for who knew how long at a time. There were rickety chairs made of the absolute minimal material necessary, built for easy stackability. Round tables of a brittle wood sported cheap tin cups. There was an eight by four stage there, presumably for when the crew needed to entertain themselves off-duty. A little treat for these hard-working sea dogs. One imagined open-mic standup comedy, bluer than the Blue Man Group, and maybe karaoke, if such a thing made any sense in a setting like this. Maybe just sea-shanties.

  On it sat two chairs. A tall, slender man sat his ass in one, long hair hanging over its back, and rested fine, oiled leather boots on the other, crossed at the ankle. His shirt was unbuttoned too low, and he cradled a tin cup. He wore a blindfold, like a sleep mask.

  His chin up, he snored audibly, red wine staining the corners of his soft lips. I thought I saw a red smudge by his neck. Lipstick? Did they have lipstick here? Here, in this medieval-inspired, but not at all limited thereto, world? This world where they had floating ziggurats and ships bigger than my community college, where everyone seemed to have the same haircut as my barbarian, or if they didn't, they tried to?

  At least the sleeper seemed to have his own style. I raised the golden, insubstantial lantern to confirm this discovery. The man's hair was jet black and wavy, and long. Or it had been. Red peaked through, and although I moved the lantern left and right, it was impossible to tell which were the roots and which dyed. Maybe they were both cosmetic.

  Oddly, I did notice something like an undershave, that whole "bald sides, long in the middle" look popular with previous generations. Stubble gleamed beneath the thin cascade of wavy hair, like stage curtains.

  "Snrkghkh," he said, startled. His arm went out in the universal sign of "wait one moment." Boots hit the floor. He did not spill his drink.

  "Isso dark," he slurred. "Where is that light coming from?"

  He sat up straight as a board, the kind of posture you only see on yoga moms and drama kids. He looked around, or at least made the motion of doing so, although I wondered how he expected to see anything through the black band.

  Slowly, he raised the tin cup to his lips, drained it, and tossed it over his shoulder. It was only now that I saw a long sword dangling at his hip, the straight scabbard of a... let's say rapier.

  Teo, I’m so sorry. I don't know a rapier from a rondache. Whatever you call the skinny fencing ones, like in Three Musketeers.

  The cup clanged off the wall and seemed to startle him. He whipped his head around, flinging his locks of hair bouncing over one shoulder, hand going to the pommel of the blade. I realized now that I had woken some kind of swordsman. This was absolute Teo material. I'd have to tell him all about it, if I ever got the chance. Or would he already know?

  He sniffed the air, and stood.

  "Who's there?" he said. "Saleeran? Is that you, my dear?"

  "You've got... you're covered...."

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  His nose snapped toward me. He did not draw the blade, but his chin went high and haughty. "Creature of darkness!" he demanded. "Reveal yourself, I command you!"

  "You're wearing a thing," I said. "I'm right here. Take it off and you'll see."

  His hand leapt up again: please hold. It slowly tapped at his face, then pushed up the sleep mask over one eye. It was gray, but somehow bright nonetheless. "I see," he said, and I believed him.

  He whipped off the mask, shaking out his luxurious hair. I'm sorry to be stuck on the hair. It was really pretty hair. Like the kind of movie star hair that's fresh out of the hair and makeup department.

  And then I noticed the other eye. A scar, ancient and mostly healed, like a jagged slash of lightning down his forehead and cheek. Identical to Strength's, only much older, but still visible and probably always would be. And unlike Yorc's, it was real.

  I guess it made some kind of sense. Did everyone living in Arthrem's inner world have some kind of representation of him? Was this all a familial phenotype? Some kind of kinship connection?

  "I... see," he said, his grey eyes taking in everything there was about me. Then he blinked at the light. "Gods beyond," he said, holding up the strip of cloth. "Do you have a dimmer on that thing?"

  I wasn't aware of one. He waved it away, a petulant motion like a child being woken up for school.

  Come to think of it, I didn't actually know how to turn it off. It seemed to have no problem just vanishing last time. I recalled the shadowy monk figure, and how it burned and scathed him.

  Was this another one of his people? I pulled it back to my body, and it seemed to lower in intensity. "Thank you," he sighed, blinking away the daze and wiping his lips.

  "If you're hurt by the light," I said, "then you probably need a little more." I thrust it in his face.

  He didn't scream, didn't sizzle. His face screwed tight, mouth a horseshoe that threatened to break past the limits of his cheeks, so intense was his frown. But he didn't run or shield himself, only let out a resigned breath.

  "Not nice," he said.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  He put one long pointer finger against my hand, guiding the lantern away. I shook him off and persisted with the interrogation.

  "Someone who was having a perfectly nice dream about Saveelan." He cleared his throat. "Ah. Saveeran. Saveerah?"

  "Who's-"

  "It doesn't matter. It's just rude to wake people up like that. Don't you have any manners?" He harrumphed. Satisfied that he wasn't being destroyed by my illumination, and probably wasn't a vampire or a dark monk thing, I drew it back.

  He shook his head, eyes fluttering. "Well, I'm not going to say thank you again. Not after..." He drew fast circles in the air with his finger toward me. "All that."

  "Fine," I said.

  "Good," he said.

  "Who are you?" we both asked at the same time.

  "Ah-bap-bup," he said, shushing me. "I will go first. Although you scarcely deserve an answer. I am known as Chris."

  "Chris."

  "Mmm," he affirmed. "I see you have heard of me?" His eyes watched me a little too closely. There was a commotion somewhere on the boat, a boom and shouting muffled by several bulkheads.

  "I don't think so."

  He scanned me intensely now. "Sandals and beads, hmm?" He planted knuckles on his slender hips. "You must be new."

  "You could say that."

  An eyebrow thrust toward his voluptuous hair. He looked like the cover of one of those Scottish lover historical romance novels. He really was a lot to take in, but his presence was insistent.

  "I am intrigued." This was a declaration, as though it mattered.

  "Well, Chris," I said, losing my patience. "That's great and all. It looks like you've had a lovely time here on the ship. But the ship is sinking, and you've got to get out of here."

  "Oh, my dear, sweet, innocent, callow child," he tutted. "The ship has been sinking for a while now."

  I don't like it when people talk over my head. I always hated when people were dramatic. I remember classmates talking about their own mundane challenges in life like they were huge, literary things, arcs and interpersonal dramas that, on account being important to them, mattered in the slightest to anyone else. Cold, maybe. But I can bet you know people like that.

  "Speak plainly," I said. "Actually, don't. I'm leaving. I've got to help save people before this thing goes down. You can go back to sleep and sink with it, for all I care."

  "That's not why you're here," he said.

  "What? Why not? Actually, shut up. Yes it is. I'm here to help people not drown. Anyway, bye."

  Every time I tried to shut him down and leave, I found myself drawn back. What was the magnetism he was using on me? Some kind of trickery?

  "But it's not why you're here." He strode past me to the door. My sandals froze to the spot. There was a tilt, and every table and chair slid with a wooden howl about six inches toward the--well, toward my right. He steadied himself lightly against the door, leaning on nothing more than fingertips. "Well. They really did a number on her, didn't they?"

  "On who?"

  "On whom. On her."

  "What?"

  "Is this your first time on a boat?"

  He frowned. I frowned back.

  "Sort of."

  Chris pinched the bridge of his nose.

  I continued. "It's my first time doing anything. I'm... not really sure where I'm supposed to be."

  A sound echoed from the holds below, racing and reverberating through the passages. It was horrible, assaulting my senses like footlong talons against the chalkboard from hell.

  Chris leaned out the bulkhead, looking for danger. He turned back to me with doubtful eyes. "That's what you're up against?"

  "Me?" My lantern flickered. "I'm not--I just want to get out of here."

  "What's stopping you?"

  "..." I actually said nothing. I said it. I opened my mouth and pushed the air out of my lungs, but it caught on no speech organs on the way out. "I... guess I have a job to do."

  "You're in way over your head, Mr. New Wisdom. We all will be, soon."

  chapter per day for the remainder of March. At the end of the month, I will maintain daily posts for the time being.