The Knight’s Courser
There was once a good, solid, and true ship called the Knight’s Courser, manned by one of the most skilled and steadfast crews ever known on the seas and captained by a fair and honest man who had the fortune (good fortune or misfortune, depending on the day, as he saw it) of having his wife for First Mate. We say he was fair and honest, but truth be told this ship’s Captain wasn’t impartial. He was extremely prejudiced in favor of believing his wife was the fairest and smartest of women, that his crew was the best to be found, and that his ship the fastest and strongest ever heard of. Notwithstanding, he did fairly treat everyone he did business with and never went back on a promise. Even if it meant putting his ship, his crew, and his wife at risk in order to sail through storms and deliver trade goods or passengers on time. He always believed they could come through safely even where other ships wouldn’t dare. Some called it bravery, others named it hubris.
It happened upon a time of fitful seasonal storms, that the Knight’s Courser put into port just ahead of one of the larger storms of those days with a load of trade goods. While the crew was hurriedly unloading the cargo and looking forward to an evening inside the local taverns listening to the wind and rain beat on the buildings from the outside, a Traveler approached the Captain along with an old Dockmaster who had long been friends with the Captain and his wife. No one knows anymore exactly what words passed between the Dockmaster, the Captain, his wife the First Mate, and the Traveler, nor even is it remembered why it should have been of particular concern to the Dockmaster that this specific Traveler reach the intended destination as soon as possible… but it will ever be remembered that in spite of the fact that the Traveler was offering extra payment to hire the ship to go back out with a large storm coming in, what really mattered was that the Captain owed the Dockmaster a solemn favor and was not going to turn him down when asked. Aside from which, he had every confidence in his ship and crew, and it was a sure bet no other ship would do it for any reason whatsoever.
Promising his crew a hearty adventure with extra leave and pay once they arrived at the next destination, the Captain cancelled all leave at that port, and any of them who were too afraid to ship out with the rest of the crew could consider themselves available to sign on to another ship at their earliest convenience. Not a one of them stayed behind.
A few other travelers dared to buy passage on the Knight’s Courser for this voyage, dire though the predictions were of many in the port. Whatever their individual reasons, they all set out in the face of the storm coming in, and made their way towards their destination – sometimes quite slowly, sometimes driven incredibly swift by the gales – though not always directly towards their destination; many course corrections were required almost constantly. The First Mate had brought on a few new crewmembers before they had set out, and though the Captain had not had time to get to know them personally, he knew that one was an additional Navigator hired specifically to guide them through a particular strait shortly before their destination. This Navigator was also very experienced in actually piloting ships through that strait; an important thing since it happened to be one that the Knight’s Courser and her crew hadn’t sailed through but one time only and in ideal conditions. The First Mate and her husband the Captain could not be certain the seas there would not still be stormy when they reached the strait, but they were determined to sail through it without delaying, and so she had hired the most experienced person she could find for the task.
The storm seemed to chase them all the way along the voyage, sometimes with something of a supernatural knack for going against the usual patterns of the ocean in those parts, and as they neared their destination it became more chill and biting, even when it was not more fierce.
One dark evening when they had just spent the day fighting against the roughest gales of the voyage thus far, the winds and waves calmed a little – though they were still fussily choppy in fitful spurts, almost as though there was a wind they couldn’t feel that kept beating down the waves they could see and the winds they could feel, the storm trying but failing to whip itself back up into an insane fury – but a wind higher up in the sky coasted down from the North and brought with it flurries of snow. Unseasonal, that, though not entirely unheard of that time of year. But not usually quite so far South or quite as much as they were seeing. Odd, and yet…
The Captain didn’t have time to finish considering it. The Second Mate (who was their chief Navigator and quite good with charts and star-maps) had been viewing the stars with some difficulty through the cloudcover the past few hours, but suddenly warned the Captain that they had somehow been driven faster towards the upcoming strait than expected. Instead of coming to it in the morning, they would be reaching it… uncomfortably soon, if he had read the signs aright.
“Well, blast it all and the depths take you if you don’t go fetch that specialist Navigator sharpish!” the Captain bellowed above a shrill whistling wind that nibbled his ears numb, suddenly realizing that curse might turn literal if things didn’t go well. If any ship could make this voyage intact under these conditions, it’d be his sure enough; but even he had realized by now that the cards seemed stacked against them and no matter how well he thought he knew the game, he still didn’t know if he was going to draw the winning card. And he had bet everything on this hand. Everything.
“Here I am, Captain.” a voice said coolly from behind his shoulder. He turned to see a youngish woman, perhaps slightly taller than average height, with raven-black hair and a piercing gaze. She was close enough to tap him on the shoulder, and he thought she might have if he hadn’t heard her. She saluted him languidly.
“You’re the Navigator who’s going to pilot the ship through the strait?” the Captain asked, just slightly uncertain over the surreal way she’d been right behind him as soon as the Second Mate had gone away.
“I most certainly am, Sir.” she said with utmost confidence. And for whatever reason, she added: “I’ve been looking at the stars and other signs, Sir. There’s no time to waste, we’re just about there.”
Taking that as an explanation for her sudden appearance, the Captain offered her the wheel while asking, “What’s your name, girl?”
“Shayrin, Sir.” and that was the last thing he ever heard her say.
He didn’t dare bother her while she was piloting the ship; she looked terribly focused and that piercing gaze of hers ranged over the sky, the sea, what rocks could be seen in the water, and (the Captain imagined) even ones he couldn’t see. He left the steering to her but watched closely and shouted commands to the crew to adjust this or that with the sails, seeing the navigator nod approvingly each time. Once in awhile, if he didn’t anticipate quickly enough, she began to gesture with one hand a little, but he quickly picked up what she meant and passed the directions on to the crew. She seemed so absorbed in her task that words would be somehow a greater additional effort than movement. He wondered if she was really as young as she looked; she seemed as experienced and at home guiding a ship as any old sailor he’d ever seen. At one moment – and he felt silly for thinking it – he thought she seemed as old as the sea itself, almost a part of it.
The sea was choppy, but not as bad as he knew it could have been; the sky was dark and overcast, but somehow enough stars seemed to peek through for Shayrin to be certain of their exact position merely by glancing at them. The air around them was speckled with snowflakes and it was the dead of night, but somehow she seemed to see enough of the ocean beside and beneath them to keep her bearings and guide the ship safely. The Captain would have sworn that it was impossible if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes; or, rather, because he had seen the conditions with his own eyes he knew how impossible it should have been, and ever afterwards he swore that was the one trip his ship and crew should never have survived, in spite of all the boasting he usually made about them otherwise.
When they were just about through, the snow was clearing up and so was the sky overhead, but the sea was still choppy and looked about to get rougher. But there was a winking light just visible on the horizon that had to be from the port they were headed for, from a lighthouse the Captain knew lay at the end of a direct clear path from the strait. The Navigator pointed to make sure the Captain had seen it, and gave him the wheel. She looked exhausted after hours staying focused on keeping the wheel precisely aligned where she needed it to be, always changing the position as the sea kept changing around them and the rough waters had seemed to be trying to fight them every inch of the way through the strait with the winds unpredictable or contrary all throughout.
The Captain gave her a pat on the back for a job well done, vowing to pay her double whatever his wife had hired her for – but although the young woman looked exhausted, her eyes still were sharp like nails to pierce a person’s very soul, and she looked back at him as if she didn’t even know who he was. Or, perhaps it was a look as though she didn’t care; nothing personal, she was just too tired.
Not long after Shayrin walked away from him down one side of the ship, his wife approached from the other. She chastised him for not waking her for the watch she was supposed to have taken over from him. She had woken up at one point and helped the crew in various ways, but then had heard disturbing news, gone belowdecks to check the truth of it, and then come straight to where the Captain was, at the wheel.
He pointed out to her the light from the lighthouse at the port, and hugged her close. “How we ever got through that-”
“How did we get through that?” She asked, gesturing back towards the strait. “Were you at the wheel this whole time? I could hardly see anything…”
“The Navigator you hired-”
She interrupted her husband again. “Is belowdecks in the crew’s quarters. I just heard he’s been terribly sick the past two days and would hardly respond when anyone tries to rouse him. I just checked for myself.”
“He? Then who was here with me? Didn’t you hire a girl named Shayrin?”
“No, I-”
She fell silent as a dark shadow fell over the ship. Towards their destination port was a lighter sky behind the horizon, and already the sky above them (now free of clouds) was no longer black. But a dark shadow spread out like a smooth and nearly-flat cloud, seeming to have come from just behind the ship and passing overhead towards the port. The trailing edge of it was like an exceptionally fine mist that was dissipating rapidly, and the leading edge had a form like the head and leading edges of the wings of a bird. A very large and very, very dark bird. Dark like the shadows of the black voids of space between stars at night.
It seemed to grow lighter as it headed in the direction of the port – no, not lighter, merely… more transparent, like it was fading away. As the husband and wife – Captain and First Mate – watched, the last part they could see of it was that leading edge shaped like the front of a bird’s head and wings. Impossibly large, but getting smaller - farther away - so very quickly even as it also seemed to fade away.
As it turned out, the Second Mate had heard there was a Navigator up with the Captain piloting the ship, soon after he’d left there – and so he’d stopped looking and gone on to help the rest of the crew with their tasks controlling the sails, and had never heard of the hired Navigator being still sick belowdecks until some of the crew had time to actually stand around and talk.
And as for the passengers… they all vowed that was the last time they’d book passage on a ship that was sailing out into a storm. Except for the Traveler who had wanted to hire the ship in the first place. Those telling the story afterwards never mentioned anything about that one making any such vow. But it is said that passenger commented two things upon hearing the full story from the Captain, as the Captain regaled everyone with it (along with ample praise of his fine crew) during the last leg of the journey.
The first was said within everyone’s hearing, in a wry tone: “Are you sure she didn’t say her name was ‘Shannon’, Captain?”
The second came later, for the Captain’s ears alone, after an apology for having been the cause of putting he, his wife, and his ship and crew into such danger. The Traveler seemed to have sincerely not expected the voyage to become so dangerous. At any rate, the apology was followed up by a recommendation to never take such an awful risk again. “After all,” the Traveler said, “ though you may have the best ship and the best crew, it’s not every day that you can count on Death itself to cheat Death for you.”
It should be noted that the Captain’s story never mentions any other details about that Traveler; apparently he was requested to leave further details out, presumably because of the specific nature of the Traveler’s business and urgent reasons for traveling at that time. Also of note is that the Captain never fully understood his own story; he and his people were largely ignorant of Sha’nin at the time and it was only later that the story became known as being one about her, with the full import becoming clearer.
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