Perfect Circles

A Sorcerous Mist-4

“I can"t say. We need to get closer and take a look but … to take Sheerwater any nearer…”

“She stays here; I"ll not risk her.”

Mac Lir looked away, back into the fog. “Very well. The only way is to go into the water then. Do you swim well Captain? We"ll see them long before they see us.”

He hesitated. He took a short knife from his belt and cut off the end of the knotted rope he still held in his hand, casting the small piece overboard. The wind calmed immediately. Everything became quiet, nothing moving. Even Sheerwater stopped creaking and breathing for a moment.

“No. I … won"t swim.”

Mac Lir looked back, surprised for the first time.

Quirk smiled slightly. “I mean, I don"t swim.”

“Indeed?” Mac Lir looked fascinated, a little amused. “Yet you make your living on the sea, sailing these dangerous waters. You must be able to swim.”

“No. Did you sail with me assuming I"m something I"m not Mac Lir?”

He smiled. “No, no. But, I"m intrigued.”

“Mac Lir, this boat is my home. The sea is my home. But I"ve seen what the ocean can do and I fear it. I love it, but I know it does not love me. I know also that if this ship goes down then I will drown. So I"ve never learned to swim. I"ve learned not to swim.”

“I don"t understand.”

“If you take chances with the sea, sooner or later it well claim you. Maybe it will anyway. But knowing I"ll drown easily makes me more cautious, more careful. If I did learn then no doubt I"d be more willing to take risks. Captain Crellin, they say, swam well.”

“Some might say running this voyage is taking a risk. Or taking me as a passenger.”

“Maybe so, but I trust to my instinct too.”

“And your men know this?”

“They do. I tell them the first day they come on board, before we ever leave dock. Tell them why too. They always look happier when I do.”

“Then … I"ll go alone.”

“No. We have two coracles we use for ferrying to shore and such. We"ll take those if you can handle one. I want to see what"s out there too.”

Mac Lir slapped him on the back. “Aye, very well Captain.”

They tied long, thin ropes to each of the small, circular, animal-hide coracles and lowered them into the water. Quirk and Mac Lir clambered down the side to kneel in them, bobbing and lurching in the choppy water. They paddled slowly off into the fog, dipping their oars in the water gently and quietly, first on one side, and then the other. They soon lost sight of Sheerwater. The lines connecting them to her playing out behind them, held by a crew member back on board but seeming to end in mid-air just behind them.

Quirk"s mind conjured up dragons and demons all around them in the heavy fog. He could see indistinct shapes moving around off to his left and right, although there was nothing there if he tried to look directly at them. He tried to ignore them, telling himself it was just the swirling sea mist.

After a few minutes Mac Lir stopped paddling and pointed up ahead. There was a definite shape there now, not shifting around, but dark and stationary in the water. A boat. He could see little detail, could gain no idea of the size and form of the vessel.

He began to see others as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. They were all around, perhaps nine or ten of them. Mac Lir nodded to him and moved on, placing each oar-stroke into the rough sea-water with precision and care. They moved forward, careful to keep the line back to Sheerwater clear.

He could see figures in one of the boats now. At first it seemed there were a number of adults and a child standing there. He could hear indistinct voices, several at once. Deep voices. Mac Lir was watched them intently, his lips moving slightly as if counting.

There was something familiar about the smaller figure on the boat but he couldn"t decide what. They seemed to be wearing a cloak, and some sort of adornment on their head he recognized. A sort of uneven, spiked hat or crown.

But he knew, then, this was no child. An adult, a man. Which meant the others must be enormous, giants of some sort. Nearly twice his height, much bigger than McBride. He wondered if the smaller figure was a prisoner, or their leader. If only he could put his finger on who that person was. He knelt there rocking to-and-fro in the flimsy coracle, the waves almost coming over its sides, he legs becoming numb with cold and tried to remember.

Mac Lir turned to him and nodded back in the direction of Sheerwater. Quirk turned and pulled smoothly but firmly twice on his line. Almost immediately, the crew back on the boat began to reel both of them in. Quirk watched the giants and the ships fade back into the grey gloom.

Half way back, it came to him who the small figure must be.

“They are Tho-Mooraine,” said Mac Lir. He, Quirk and McBride stood at Sheerwater"s tiller, talking in quiet tones about what they had seen out there on the water.

“Never heard of them. Who are they? What are they?” asked Quirk.

“Their homeland is far away, not of this world. They are pirates and raiders, but also great navigators. They live off the pillaging of ships and coastal towns. They know the currents and passageways that can take them between the worlds, from one sea to another. I have never heard of them in these waters before, but there is no mistaking them.”

“They are giants?”

“Yes. And strong and fierce, a terrible enemy.” He sighed. “I fear for the island. This behaviour puzzles me though. They are scavengers. Occasionally two or three of them will band together to take on a larger ship or a town. But there"s a whole fleet of them out there.”

“The Archdruidh?”

Mac Lir raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you saw him then? You recognized him?”

“I did. At first I thought he must be a prisoner. But now I think not.”

“And I think I agree with you.” Mac Lir spoke in hushed, almost bitter tones, but it was McBride"s face that caught Quirk"s attention. Anyone who didn"t know him would have seen little change. Quirk recognized the slight scowl, the narrowing of his eyes. It was what he did when a black storm filled half the sky and ran hard at them. In him it was like other men shouting.

Not taking his eyes off McBride he said, “But why? The Druidh protect the island. Why would they be out here, with these invaders? I don"t understand any of this.”

“They would make us all slaves.” It was McBride that spoke, almost whispered.

“Slaves? Yes my friend, maybe they would,” said Mac Lir. “The Druidh have an army it seems. Or perhaps a distraction for the people of the island, or something to terrify and cow them with.”

“But … at what price? These Tho-Mooraine: how can the Druidh trust them? Hope to control them?”

“They play a dangerous game. At a guess, the Tho-Mooraine are to be the new Lords of Mann, with the Druidh at their side when all the Wycka are killed. At their side or at their back. We must stop this Quirk, stop this fleet reaching shore.”

“But how?” Quirk was half-shouting, suddenly angry, afraid. “How can we do anything? We are one cargo ship against a fleet! A fleet of warships!”

Mac Lir looked out to sea, into the fog, and then up at the sky as if tell the time from a sun he could not see. “Your cargo Captain. May I buy it off you?”

“What? My cargo? I don"t understand.”

“Time is short. May I buy your cargo? I will give you a good price.”

“Money … isn"t the concern; I don"t see how we can defeat these devils and I don"t see what our cargo has to do with it Mac Lir.”

“Nevertheless I will give you a good price. You can"t eat seawater nor pay your crew with it. Tell me what price you would have got at the Western Isles and tell me quickly.”

Quirk sighed, confused. “Very well. You may have the cargo. With Crellin at the bottom of the sea it would have fetched us perhaps three silvers a barrel. But I still don"t …”

“Then that is what I shall pay.” Mac Lir pulled out a leather pouch from inside his cloak and handed it to Quirk. “Take what you think is fair. Then I would be grateful if you could organize your crew to throw the whole cargo overboard. As quietly and as quickly as possible please.”

“What?”

They lowered the barrels gently into the water, the crew working together as calmly and efficiently as if they were unloading at the dockside. There were only occasional mutterings of disbelief at what they were doing. Quirk felt strangely cheated too, even though they had been paid as good a price as they could have hoped for. He was more worried about the Tho-Mooraine though. He repeatedly scanned the thick fog, expecting all the time to see the great hulks of their ships looming suddenly near.

He went to speak to Mac Lir, who was watching his expensive cargo of fish being returned to the sea from whence they came.

“The fish are yours to do what you will with Mac Lir. But Sheerwater is not. Tell me what you plan here, why you are doing this thing. Are you preparing to fight?”

Mac Lir smiled. He seemed to be enjoying this. “No my friend, I am preparing to flee. In these situations I have learned not to fight. This is a fine boat but she is no match for those out there.”

“But we cannot just run away.”

“I think perhaps we can.”

“I don"t understand.”

“Do you know where we are Quirk?”

“Roughly. Maybe north-east of Ayre, a few miles offshore I reckon.”

“That"s about right. And with the Witch Queen"s wind abated I"m sure you know where the currents will carry us?”

“Aye.”

“Then as you"ll know, two or three leagues up ahead are the Creggyn Doo, the black rocks some call The Teeth.”

“Of course. All sailors know that and all sailors avoid them. They are deadly waters. No keel can pass through there without being ripped open.”

“We can.”

“No. It is too dangerous.”

Mac Lir grinned now. “I know a passage through those rocks. With this tide, with our draught raised now there isn"t all that weight in the hold, with me navigating, we can do it.”

“And the Tho-Mooraine?”

“I"m thinking they don"t know about the Creggyn Doo. Even if they do, I"m thinking they won"t know about the channel through them that even Manx Captains don"t know about. I"m thinking they"ll follow us in and founder on the teeth. Shall we try it and see Quirk?”